Between September 2019 and January 2020, three former high-ranking Armenian security officials died under suspicious circumstances — all during the most active period of political prosecutions following the 2018 Velvet Revolution. The clustering of these deaths within four months, all involving men who served under the Sargsyan-Kocharyan regimes and possessed sensitive knowledge about political violence and state capture, demands investigation.
On September 23, 2019, Hayk Harutyunyan, the former Police Chief who directed the March 1, 2008 crackdown that killed 10 people, was found dead with a gunshot wound at his residence in Bjni village. He was a key witness in the ongoing trial of ex-President Robert Kocharyan. Two news websites, citing anonymous sources, reported that moments before his death, Harutyunyan had complained of being pressured to give false incriminating testimony against Kocharyan. The Prosecutor General acknowledged his death “may be of key importance in the investigation.”
Two months later, on November 28, Ashot Karapetyan, former Yerevan Police Chief, died in an explosion at a beer factory in Pyatigorsk, Russia. Then on January 17, 2020, NSS Director Georgi Kutoyan was found dead with 40+ shells at the scene. Three former security chiefs, all serving under the old regime, all possessing explosive knowledge — dead within 120 days. Whether the pressure came from the new government seeking testimony, the old regime silencing witnesses, or something else entirely, the pattern is too stark to ignore.