Tiran Khachatryan Submits New Lawsuit Against Defense Minister and General Staff

The former first deputy chief of the Armenian Armed Forces General Staff, Tiran Khachatryan, has submitted a new lawsuit to the Administrative Court of Armenia against the Minister of Defense, Vagharshak Harutyunyan, and the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces.

The lawsuit was filed on March 23 and was assigned to Judge Daniel Danielyan on the same day. There is currently no information regarding the acceptance or rejection of the lawsuit for processing.

Earlier, Faktinfo reported that Khachatryan's dismissal from his position as the first deputy chief of the General Staff was prompted by his reaction to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's statement regarding Iskander missiles, which he reacted to with laughter. Specifically, during an interview on February 23, Pashinyan stated that the Iskander missiles fired during the war either did not explode or exploded only 10 percent of the time, suggesting that Russia may have supplied Armenia with weapons produced in the 1980s.

This statement by Pashinyan received a substantial reaction from both Russia and the expert community, as experts claim it is, at the very least, unprofessional. Following Khachatryan's response, President Pashinyan signed the order for his dismissal on February 24.

On March 3, Khachatryan submitted a lawsuit to the Administrative Court, seeking to annul the Presidential decree issued on February 24 that dismissed him from his position. The Administrative Court, led by Judge Meri Hambardzumyan, accepted the case for processing on March 10, with the preliminary hearing scheduled for April 29. A decision was made to involve the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces and the Prime Minister as third parties in this case.

Notably, before the court accepted Khachatryan's first lawsuit on March 10, which legally should have suspended the question of his dismissal, the Minister of Defense signed a new decree, transferring Khachatryan to the reserve force, and subsequently another decree returned him from leave. This became the basis for his second lawsuit.

With this second lawsuit, Khachatryan demands the annulment of the Minister of Defense's order dated February 26, which left General-Lieutenant Khachatryan in the reserve force. Additionally, he requests the annulment of the order from March 15, by which the Minister recalled Khachatryan from leave and tasked Acting Chief of the General Staff, General-Lieutenant Galstyan, to remove Khachatryan from the personnel roster.

Khachatryan is also asking the court to issue a favorable administrative act to reinstate him as the first deputy chief of the General Staff and to include him in the personnel lists of the 10950 military unit under the Ministry of Defense of Armenia, along with providing him with all relevant benefits.