Scandalous Revelations About the Activities of the Military Police Chief

Recently, following a series of suicides and murders in the army, particularly involving the son of Arakel Movsisyan, human rights advocates have called for the resignation of Arthur Baghdasaryan, the Chief of the Military Police. 1in.am reports that claims suggest Baghdasaryan is out of touch with the operational situation within the army, which leads to the frequent recurrence of such incidents.

Baghdasaryan has been accused of engaging in corrupt dealings since after the revolution, continuing to this day. Employees claim he deliberately fires staff without justification and then demands sums between $4,000 to $6,000 to reinstate them. Additionally, he maintains a climate of fear and intimidation so that no one dares to voice concerns about his corrupt transactions.

“The Military Police now operates under the conditions of Vova’s time. The Chief still runs things as if he’s under Serzh Sargsyan. They are only interested in staff trading, and nothing else captures their attention. They show no concern for soldiers dying, committing suicide, or getting killed; they are completely oblivious. But that is their immediate duty, and they are responsible for it,” said several Military Police employees in an interview with the outlet.

1in.am has uncovered several significant details regarding illegal orders issued by Arthur Baghdasaryan during the days of the revolution. Notably, on April 29, 2018, he summoned all his deputies, department heads, and colonels to instruct that if the public were to block military escort vehicles, they should order the military escort to dismount from their vehicles and crush the people below while driving military trucks over them. Such orders were conveyed to the colonels present at the meeting.

Baghdasaryan justified this order by claiming, “It’s a revolution; some 7-8 people need to die, that’s how it is,” explicitly stating that Nikol is an idiot who doesn’t understand what he’s doing.

According to reports, the only dissent against this evidently illegal order came from Baghdasaryan's then-deputy, Colonel Ashot Vanyan, who drafted a report stating that he refused to comply with the order. However, that report was not registered within the Military Police's secretariat, and Baghdasaryan refused to accept it.

In addition to the illegal orders for driving over the crowd, the Chief of the Military Police also took various illegal actions on the same day the peacekeeping troops joined the protests and began marching with the people. Baghdasaryan declared an alarm at the Military Police, assembled his personnel, and ordered that all their vehicles go to the vicinity of the peacekeeping troops at that moment.

Following this command, Baghdasaryan, along with his aide Gagik Ghukasian—who is also the son of a relative of Serzh Sargsyan and has worked in the Military Police—rushed to the peacekeeping troops. They assembled around 400 members of the peacekeeping force and spoke to them in a threatening tone, asking why they were siding with the protesters and warning them not to leave their area (by that time, part of the peacekeeping troops had already joined the protesters).

Subsequently, under Baghdasaryan's order, armed members of the special operations unit were deployed to surround the peacekeeping base, instructed to fire upon anyone who left the compound.

To this day, it remains unclear whether these illegal commands originated as personal initiatives from the Chief of the Military Police, or if he was acting on orders from his superiors.

However, 1in.am managed to speak with Colonel Ashot Vanyan, who was a deputy to the Chief of the Military Police at the time and was present during those actions. He confirmed that on April 29, 2018, he received orders from Arthur Baghdasaryan to drive over the crowd if the people blocked their vehicles and affirmed that he had refused to execute that command, for which he wrote a report.

Furthermore, Vanyan also corroborated the incidents that took place at the peacekeeping base. He remarked that it was solely due to his efforts that the armed personnel of the special operations unit, who were directly under his command, were removed from the base. “That unit— the special operations squad—was brought in specifically for that purpose, to fire upon our troops if they attempted to leave the base,” Vanyan stated, adding that it was for that reason that the remaining portion of the peacekeeping forces did not join the protesters.

As strange as it may seem, following all these events, Arthur Baghdasaryan continues to serve as the Chief of the Military Police, while Vanyan has left the system, believing he has no further role in such an environment. Afterward, Ashot Vanyan took a position as a consultant to the suspended head of the State Oversight Service, Davit Sanasaryan. However, at the end of last year, acting head of the State Oversight Service, Argishti Karapetyan, suggested that Vanyan submit his resignation.