Papikyan’s Conviction: A Story They Preferred to Keep Quiet About

In February 2020, a major scandal erupted around the then Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure. The occasion was a publication by Hraparak.am titled “Suren Papikyan Hid the Fact of His Conviction.”

The media outlet claimed that during his mandatory military service, Papikyan had been involved in a criminal case concerning an attack on a commander. According to the published information, he was charged with using violence against a superior during military service, including with the use of a weapon.

According to the publication, on March 27, 2006, the 5th Garrison Military Court sentenced Papikyan to 2 years and 3 months of imprisonment. Later, the Court of General Jurisdiction of the Erebuni Administrative District brought the verdict into conformity with Armenian legislation. It was also reported that Papikyan served his sentence at “Nubarashen” Penitentiary Institution and was released under an amnesty on February 23, 2007.

Following the strong reaction, Papikyan was forced to publicly provide explanations for the first time. On air, he confirmed the fact of the conflict and the subsequent conviction, but denied the version involving an attack with a knife. According to him, it concerned a dispute that had arisen on the basis of non-statutory relations and an “insult to national dignity” in a military unit with a multinational composition.

The minister stated that the conviction had subsequently been cleared by an amnesty, which had allowed him to engage in teaching activities and hold public positions.

Papikyan himself called the publication a political attack at the height of the campaign for the 2020 constitutional referendum, in which he headed the “Yes” campaign headquarters.

He drew particular attention to the leak of information. Papikyan stated that the case materials had been kept in the closed archives of the police and the National Security Service, and therefore their publication could have been connected to representatives of the former security system. In particular, he hinted at the circle around former NSS Director Artur Vanetsyan.

Despite the major public resonance, the scandal quickly disappeared from the agenda. Nikol Pashinyan publicly defended his team member, and Papikyan faced no political consequences.

As a result, society never received a complete version of this story. Only fragments remained: a criminal case, a court, prison, an amnesty, and several fragmentary comments from Papikyan himself. For a man who, several years later, would head Armenia’s Ministry of Defense, his biography turned out to be surprisingly incomplete.

It was precisely after this episode that Papikyan’s political career began to develop at dizzying speed.

How the Leak About Papikyan’s Past Led to a Case Being Brought Against an NSS Officer

The story continued just a few weeks after the scandal. On February 28, 2020, Armenian NSS Colonel Serob Harutyunyan was charged with abuse of official powers. The investigation claimed that he was the one who had organized the leak of information about Suren Papikyan’s conviction.

According to the Special Investigative Service’s version, in January 2020, Serob Harutyunyan, without official necessity, ordered the verification of data concerning the minister’s conviction, after which a certificate containing details of the verdict was obtained from the Police Information Center: 2 years and 3 months of imprisonment, by a decision of the 5th Garrison Military Court dated March 27, 2006, and release under an amnesty on February 23, 2007.

However, the criminal case brought against the NSS officer ultimately failed. As his lawyer Yerem Sargsyan stated, the investigation lasted almost a year, all possible investigative and operational measures were carried out, after which the prosecution was terminated, and Serob Harutyunyan was acquitted.

However, the story did not end there. Already after his acquittal and demands for S. Harutyunyan’s reinstatement, on October 18, 2021, Armenia’s Prosecutor General’s Office filed a new lawsuit against him under the Law on Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin. The defendants were Serob Harutyunyan himself and Anush Antonyants, a person affiliated with him. It is noteworthy that this was the first lawsuit of its kind in the history of Armenia.

From 2022 to 2025, the case was examined by the Anti-Corruption Court. During one of the hearings in 2023, Harutyunyan directly stated that he linked the prosecution against him to the story involving Suren Papikyan.

The amounts involved in the case themselves were relatively small by Armenian political standards. However, the sequence of events was striking: first, an NSS officer was accused of leaking information about a minister’s conviction, then the case collapsed, and after his acquittal, another legal mechanism was set in motion against him.

As a result, the scandal surrounding Papikyan’s biography gradually turned into a separate story about how the Armenian system responds to the publication of inconvenient information. And for the authorities, judging by everything, the main question was not the minister’s conviction itself, but who, specifically, had decided to make it public.