The night at Aragast
Shortly after midnight on September 25, 2001, Poghos Poghosyan was at the Aragast café in central Yerevan. Human Rights Watch reported that President Robert Kocharian and singer Charles Aznavour had just left when Poghosyan addressed the president informally. Witness accounts collected by the organization described a presidential bodyguard asking the 43-year-old into a restroom, followed by several security personnel.
About ten minutes later, an ambulance paramedic pronounced Poghosyan dead. Contemporary reporting and the later official review agree on the place and approximate time of death, but sharply diverge over what happened behind the restroom door.
The original investigation
The next day, Armenian authorities opened a criminal investigation. Prosecutors charged presidential security officer Aghamal Harutyunyan. The official theory described a brawl in which Poghosyan fell backward, struck his head on the tiled floor and died from the resulting injury.
Human Rights Watch challenged that account in December 2001. It said witnesses feared retaliation and reported information suggesting that multiple security personnel beat Poghosyan. The organization also cited the prosecutor general’s acknowledgement that the body carried injuries consistent with abuse. Those statements were allegations and investigative evidence, not verdicts against unnamed individuals.
The 2002 verdict
On February 21, 2002, a Yerevan court found Harutyunyan guilty under the criminal law then in force. Armenia’s Prosecutor’s Office later summarized the punishment as two years’ imprisonment, conditionally not applied, with one year of probation.
The sentence did not establish that a group committed the killing, nor did it adjudicate the responsibility of other security officers. For that reason, the existence of a conviction does not close every material question raised by the death.
New witnesses and forensic findings
Years later, representatives of British witness Stephen John Newton submitted materials to Armenia’s Prosecutor General. In its January 20, 2020 statement, the Prosecutor’s Office said renewed interviews — including Newton’s — confirmed that a group beat Poghosyan.
A new forensic medical commission also reached conclusions different from the earlier expert report. According to prosecutors, the combined evidence indicated blows to several parts of Poghosyan’s body and a severe blunt head injury caused during a group assault.
This was the Prosecutor’s Office’s formal assessment in seeking a new proceeding. It should not be read as a final conviction of Harutyunyan for aggravated murder or as a judgment against other participants.
The bid for a new trial
Prosecutors opened proceedings based on newly discovered circumstances and asked the Court of Appeal to reject the 2002 verdict and send the case for new consideration. The official statement argued that the evidence pointed to a more serious offense — aggravated murder — and possible involvement by other people.
The reopening request matters because it came from the same prosecution service whose earlier case had produced the limited conviction. It also explains why the file cannot accurately be described as either wholly unsolved or fully resolved.
Current status
The 2002 conviction and suspended sentence remain the last final individual outcome established by the sources reviewed for this file. The 2020 prosecutorial statement documents an effort to overturn that result and pursue a broader account, but no reliable source reviewed here established a later final judgment convicting additional participants.
Crime by Region therefore labels the case adjudicated / partial. It records the conviction without endorsing the original accident-like narrative as the complete truth, and records the later allegations without converting them into criminal guilt.
Questions still unanswered
- What final procedural outcome followed the Prosecutor’s Office request for a new trial?
- Was any additional security officer formally charged?
- How did a later court assess the new witness accounts and forensic commission findings?
- Does the 2002 suspended sentence remain the operative final judgment?
Frequently asked questions
Was anyone convicted over Poghosyan’s death?
Yes. Aghamal Harutyunyan was convicted in 2002 and received a two-year sentence that was suspended with one year of probation.
Did a court prove that a group committed the killing?
No final group conviction was located. In 2020 prosecutors said new witness and forensic evidence supported that conclusion and sought a new trial.
Why is the case not marked fully solved?
The narrow 2002 conviction did not resolve the documented evidence of a group assault or establish the responsibility of other alleged participants.