Armenian premier's son escapes kidnapping attempt by mother of soldier killed in 2nd Karabakh war

By Yavuz Aydin

ANKARA (AA) — An attempt has been made in Armenia to kidnap the son of the country's prime minister, with a grieving mother whose son was killed in a 2020 war with Azerbaijan allegedly behind the plot, local media has reported.

A woman claiming to be the mother of a soldier who died in the war over the Karabakh region, allegedly lured Ashot Pashinyan, son of Premier Nikol Pashinyan, into her car for a conversation in the capital Yerevan, according to a Wednesday report by the state-run Armenpress news agency, which cited the Investigative Committee of Armenia.

Pashinyan said that while in the vehicle, the woman told him about her son and that he had been taken to fight in the war without her consent, as she accelerated the car past the legal speed limit.

The woman reportedly expressed her desperation to Pashinyan, saying she had nothing to left to lose and intended to take him to the Yerablur Military Memorial Cemetery on the outskirts of the city, where she would decide whether or not to kill him.

Pashinyan recounted that he was able leap out of the vehicle's front seat as soon as the woman slowed down at an intersection but was hit seconds later by a vehicle driven by other parents of soldiers killed in the war.

He was able to escape the ordeal with light injuries, fleeing into a nearby supermarket, the report said, adding that the woman was later arrested and criminal proceedings launched on the matter.

In the fall of 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a 44-day war that ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement that opened the door to normalization.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991 when Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan and seven adjacent regions.