Another former defense minister of Nagorno-Karabakh accused of negligence during 2020 war

YEREVAN, September 2, /ARKA/. Jalal Harutyunyan, former minister of defense of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been charged with negligence during the 44-day war in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone in 2020 autumn, Armenia's Investigative Committee said today.

He was told not to leave the country pending the end of investigation. His duties of chief of the Military Control Service of the Armenian Ministry of Defense have been suspended.

According to the Investigative Committee, during the war (on October 7, 2020) unleashed by Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh, Jalal Harutyunyan showed negligence regarding his official duties, which led to severe consequences, in particular, heavy losses in manpower and armored vehicles, reserve forces became inoperable and firing positions were taken over by the enemy.

On 6 October 2020. Harutyunyan decided to launch a counterstrike to stabilize the situation after a breakthrough made by the enemy, aiming to surround the latter and cut off their supply lines, although the Armenian units were outnumbered by the enemy five times.

At the same time, there was no cooperation between the Armenian military units of Nagorno-Karabakh: some of them acted uncoordinated - some attacked without support, while others had not even advanced to the line of attack.

As a result, Armenian troops suffered heavy losses in personnel, tanks and armored vehicles and were forced to retreat.

In February 2021, Jalal Harutyunyan was appointed Head of the Military Control Service of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia.

Earlier this week another former defense minister of Karabakh, Mikayel Arzumanyan, who succeeded Jalalyan after the latter was heavily wounded in the war, was accused of the same charges and arrested. -0-