YEREVAN, Armenia — Armenia’s safety products and services arrested one of the most nation’s most sensible non secular leaders on terrorism fees Wednesday and accused him of plotting to overthrow the federal government, the second one arrest in per week of a distinguished political opponent.
Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a big determine within the influential Apostolic Church, was once arrested via Armenia’s Investigative Committee, which accused him of making plans to hold out bombings and arson assaults to disrupt energy provides and degree injuries on primary roads to paralyze site visitors. His attorney described the costs as “fiction.”
Galstanyan leads the Sacred Battle opposition motion and has demanded the resignation of High Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was once the point of interest of protests closing yr via tens of hundreds of demonstrators after Armenia agreed at hand over keep watch over of a number of border villages to sour rival Azerbaijan and to normalize members of the family between the neighbors.
Galstanyan leads the Tavush Diocese in northeastern Armenia and spearheaded a motion that hostile the handover of the villages within the nation, which was once as soon as a part of the Soviet Union. Despite the fact that the territorial concession was once the motion’s core factor, it has expanded to a wide selection of court cases about Pashinyan, who got here to energy in 2018.
The verdict to show over the villages adopted a lightning army marketing campaign in September 2023, through which Azerbaijan’s army pressured ethnic Armenian separatists within the Karabakh area to capitulate.
Pashinyan wrote on social media that the safety products and services had foiled a plot via “the legal oligarch clergy to destabilize Armenia and take energy.”
Officers stated 13 others additionally have been detained amid raids via police at the properties of dozens of opposition activists. The Investigative Committee stated it performed over 90 searches and recovered proof that integrated firearms and ammunition.
Along with disputing the costs, Galstanyan’s attorney, Sergei Harutyunyan, stated police searched the cleric’s place of dwelling for 6 hours however discovered simplest smoke bombs which are regularly used at protests in Armenia.
“They frolicked learning each room, each closet, each letter; they recorded the whole lot,” Harutyunyan stated.
Makes an attempt to question Pashinyan have been unsuccessful, however the courting between him and the Apostolic Church has deteriorated.
On June 8, Pashinyan known as for church chief Catholicos Karekin II to surrender after accusing him of fathering a kid in spite of a vow of celibacy. The church launched a remark on the time accusing Pashinyan of undermining Armenia’s “religious harmony” however didn’t deal with the declare concerning the kid.
Pashinyan’s declare sparked contemporary anger a few of the church’s fans, together with Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who gave the impression in a video pronouncing that the non secular establishment was once beneath assault.
Karapetyan, 59, was once detained June 18, days after the clip was once posted on-line, and accused of calling for seizing energy within the nation. Pashinyan later stated the billionaire’s power corporate, Electrical energy Networks of Armenia, could be nationalized.
