Arsen Gevorgyan, 46, who headed the opposition Strong Armenia party’s list in the October 25 Stepanavan City Council elections, died on the morning of November 10 at the Nubarashen Penitentiary in Yerevan. He had been held in pretrial detention for 20 days and was never tried.
The Penitentiary Service said his condition deteriorated early that morning and the on-duty medical officer gave him first aid. An ambulance was called at about 7:55 a.m., and its crew recorded his death at about 8:30 a.m.
“Arsen Gevorgyan had not reported any health complaints during his time at the penitentiary,” said Nona Navikyan, head of the Public Relations Department of the Penitentiary Service.
No cause of death has been established. His relatives said he died of a heart attack and had not complained of health problems before. Justice Minister Srbuhi Galyan said cardiac arrest was recorded. No final medical conclusion has been published.
Gevorgyan was arrested on October 21, 4 days before the vote, during searches in Stepanavan in which 14 people were detained on charges of giving, assisting in and receiving electoral bribes. The Anti-Corruption Court ordered 2 months of pretrial detention the same day.
The proceedings were opened after measures by Armenia’s National Security Service. The Anti-Corruption Committee alleged that Gevorgyan bought votes from several dozen voters across the enlarged Stepanavan community, with help from council candidates and people acting for the party, and that he had prepared to buy votes from more than 3 dozen more. The Committee published video footage with the announcement.
Gevorgyan denied the charges and his legal team said the sums in the case had nothing to do with electoral bribery. Strong Armenia called the arrests political revenge the day they happened, saying secretly filmed footage was being used for political ends and that altered clips were circulating. His guilt was never established by a court verdict that entered into legal force.
After his death, the party said he had been detained on fabricated charges and held the prime minister responsible without naming him.
“The responsibility for the death of yet another opposition figure in prison lies with the person on whose orders hundreds of people are groundlessly discredited and detained,” Strong Armenia said, extending condolences to his family.
Galyan, speaking to reporters at a briefing in Yerevan after the 20th meeting of the CIS Council of Justice Ministers, expressed condolences to Gevorgyan’s family, relatives and friends, and rejected the accusation.
“Unfortunately, such incidents happen around the world, including in penitentiary facilities,” she said.
“Unfortunately, people with existing or newly developed health conditions sometimes find themselves in detention,” Galyan said. “Should we be blamed for that? We have repeatedly stated, and this is the reality, that no political persecution is taking place.”
Asked who would be held responsible if it emerged that Gevorgyan had not been given proper medical care, and whether the ministry was prepared to take responsibility, Galyan did not answer directly.
She said more than 20 deaths were recorded in Armenia’s penitentiary facilities last year, and that Gevorgyan’s was the 4th this year. On November 3, presenting figures to the National Assembly during the 2027 budget discussion, Galyan said 3 deaths had been recorded in penitentiaries in 2026 and that the number had fallen compared with previous years. Gevorgyan died 7 days later.
Aram Vardevanyan, an opposition Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly and a lawyer, said pretrial detention is an exceptional preventive measure rather than a punishment, and accused the authorities of jailing large numbers of people without justification and failing to guarantee detainees basic medical care.
“For a long time, we have been speaking openly about how pretrial detention in Armenia has become not only an instrument of political repression but an evil in its own right,” Vardevanyan wrote on Facebook. “Gevorgyan was entirely under the care and responsibility of the state, and under these circumstances we are confronted with this appalling reality.”
Strong Armenia finished third in Stepanavan with 19.68 percent. The Gortsarar (Entrepreneur) party won with 41.54 percent and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract came second with 35.32 percent, in the only community where Civil Contract did not win. The party applied to annul the result, alleging law enforcement interference in the campaign and misuse of administrative resources, and the application was rejected in early November.
Strong Armenia is the largest opposition force in Armenia’s National Assembly, holding 29 of 105 seats.
Armenia has recorded a death in custody under comparable circumstances before. Producer Armen Grigoryan died on July 15, 2022 during a preliminary hearing at the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction, where he had been brought from custody after his arrest that May. Then Human Rights Defender Kristinne Grigoryan raised concerns about the right to health protection in detention, sought clarification from the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Justice, and criminal proceedings were opened into the death.
