10 Officers Charged

The investigation into the refusal of military personnel to perform their duties during a state of martial law has concluded, involving ten officers, at the sixth garrison investigative department of the Military Investigative Committee of the Republic of Armenia.

As a result of extensive investigative and procedural actions, several circumstances have been clarified. Specifically, evidence has been obtained indicating that during the aggressive war launched by the Azerbaijani military-political leadership against Artsakh on September 27, 2020, under the conditions of the declared martial law, the personnel of the 2nd rifle battalion of military unit N was ordered by the commander on October 18, 2020, to engage in combat operations. However, several servicemen from the battalion, including the commander and nine officers, refused to fulfill their military service obligations while en route, effectively discontinuing their service and returning to their permanent deployment location.

Based on the sufficiency of collected evidence, the battalion commander and the nine officers have been charged under Article 364, Part 3 of the Criminal Code of Armenia, adopted on April 18, 2003 (which corresponds to Article 529, Part 3 of the Criminal Code of Armenia, effective from July 1, 2022). A new proceeding has been initiated regarding these ten officers, which has been sent to the supervising prosecutor for a decision on whether to forward it to court.