Suspect taken into custody for attempted murder of Ararat Mirzoyan during 2020 Yerevan riots

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 22, ARMENPRESS. A man suspected of being one of the assailants who severely battered Ararat Mirzoyan when he was Speaker of Parliament in 2020 has been taken into custody.

The arrest was made in an ongoing criminal investigation into the 10 November 2020 riots in Yerevan, when a crowd of demonstrators attacked then-Speaker of Parliament Ararat Mirzoyan, who is now the Foreign Minister, and breached into Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s official residence. The suspect is remanded in pre-trial detention.

The National Security Service said the suspect had joined the crowd of protesters in the Demirchyan-Proshyan intersection in Yerevan and noticed that Speaker of Parliament Ararat Mirzoyan’s vehicle was stuck in traffic. When the protesters had already taken Mirzoyan out of the car and he was on the ground, the suspect approached him and started kicking Mirzoyan together with other assailants in the head and other parts of the body. The suspect sought to murder Speaker Mirzoyan, the NSS said. Mirzoyan suffered multiple fractures of the skull, among other injuries.

Mirzoyan was saved by his bodyguards and taken to the Erebuni hospital.