{"id":5874,"date":"2025-06-11T11:21:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T08:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armtribunal.com\/?p=5874"},"modified":"2025-06-18T13:31:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T10:31:13","slug":"5874","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armtribunal.com\/en\/2025\/06\/11\/5874\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dark Side of the \u201cVelvet\u201d First Lady\nThe Tribunal Accuses Anna Hakobyan of Complicity in Crimes Against the State and the People of Armenia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dark Side of the \u201cVelvet\u201d First Lady\nThe Tribunal Accuses Anna Hakobyan of Complicity in Crimes Against the State and the People of Armenia<\/h3>
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Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, nearly all post-Soviet countries saw the emergence of a \u201cfifth column\u201d - networks of NGOs, media outlets, and political parties operating under the guise of promoting diplomatic values, human rights, and civil liberties. In reality, many of these actors, heavily financed by various Western foundations, engaged in subversive activity, exploiting the socio-economic hardships of the so-called \u201ctransition period\u201d as a fertile ground for anti-state operations.<\/p>\n

Armenia was no exception. Since Serzh Sargsyan came to power in 2008, the country has seen a surge of public organizations, so-called human rights groups, media outlets, and journalists funded by the West - popping up like mushrooms after the rain. Greed and personal ambition became the driving forces behind the rise of corrupt \u201crights defenders,\u201d reporters, and political actors who readily sacrificed Armenia\u2019s national interests. One of the most prominent - and at the same time, enigmatic - figures of this \u201cfifth column\u201d is Anna Hakobyan, the spouse of the prime minister.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

She is considered enigmatic largely because there is remarkably little public information available about her biography, even though she is the wife of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Details about her early life, including her parents, remain absent from open sources. Since Pashinyan\u2019s rise to power, both the public and political circles in Armenia have repeatedly claimed that Anna Hakobyan acts as a \u201cshadow\u201d prime minister, frequently interfering in key state-level decision-making processes.<\/p>\n

The Tribunal Project presents a compilation of materials from various sources detailing Anna Hakobyan\u2019s anti-state activities.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

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According to her brief biography on Wikipedia, Anna Hakobyan graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Yerevan State University in 2000. It was during her student years that she met her future husband, Nikol Pashinyan, who began his career as a journalist before moving into opposition politics and eventually becoming prime minister following the Velvet Revolution. Between the events of March 1, 2008, and 2011, Hakobyan served as editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak.<\/p>\n

It is known that following the events of March 1, 2008, Nikol Pashinyan went into hiding. In 2009, he turned himself in to the authorities and, in January 2010, was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of organizing mass unrest. However, in May 2011, he was granted amnesty by then-President Serzh Sargsyan.<\/p>\n

What was Anna Hakobyan doing to support the family while her husband was in prison? The New Insider internet portal writes the following<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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The Tribunal recently published an article<\/a> raising this very question. According to the publication, in 2009\u20132010, during Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s imprisonment, Anna Hakobyan unexpectedly acquired three vehicles, including a brand new Nissan Qashqai. Then, shortly after his release in 2012, Pashinyan himself purchased a new HYUNDAI SONATA (2011 model), reportedly worth 13.6 million drams.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

The former ambassador of Armenia to the Vatican Mikael Minasyan admitted in one of his video addresses that he used to buy the unsold published newspapers of Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s \u201cHaykakan Zhamanak\u201d Daily for many years:<\/p>\n

Former Armenian Ambassador to the Vatican Mikael Minasyan admitted in one of his video addresses that he had been purchasing the unsold copies of Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s Haykakan Zhamanak daily for years.\n\u201cI must admit, with a sense of embarrassment, that in order to make these blasphemers leave my family alone, I had to make a deal - agreeing to finance their unsold newspapers each month so they wouldn\u2019t have returns. Haykakan Zhamanak was never in demand,\u201d Minasyan said, as quoted by news.am<\/a>.\n\u0589<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

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It\u2019s hard to believe that Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s \u201cblackmail\u201d was the real reason Mikael Minasyan funded the Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper, especially considering that, as the son-in-law of Armenia\u2019s third president Serzh Sargsyan, Minasyan had far more effective means to neutralize such pressure without paying a price. The fact that Pashinyan\u2019s \u201cYelq\u201d bloc was \u201celected\u201d as a so-called opposition under the control of the third president serves as strong evidence that there were other motives behind the financing of Haykakan Zhamanak.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

Anna Hakobyan: \u201cArtsakh is like a suitcase without a handle, and only Russia needs it.\u201d<\/h3>
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Let\u2019s return to Anna Hakobyan, who has consistently shared her husband\u2019s view that Artsakh was the main obstacle to normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations. The surrender of Artsakh seems to have been the underlying theme of the Pashinyan family\u2019s political vision. There\u2019s ample evidence to support this claim. For example, journalist Levon Ghazaryan cites an article from Haykakan Zhamanak<\/a> dated March 15, 2007:<\/p>\n

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\u201cWho said that someone who prefers peace over war isn\u2019t a patriot, or that a supporter of good-neighborly relations with bordering states is a traitor? Who decided that we must leave behind a ticking time bomb for future generations, and that only those who do so are true sons of the homeland? What a political misconception, what an ethnopsychological anomaly! We must overcome these harmful psychological stereotypes and spare future generations from their burden.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In another article dated November 27, 2008, Ghazaryan writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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\u201cOn November 4, Haykakan Zhamanak ran a headline claiming that, according to a reliable source, one of the leaders of the Austrian Green Party, Maria Vassilakou, had told Armenian students during a meeting that she had learned from Armenia\u2019s Ambassador to Austria, Ashot Hovakimyan, that Armenia was attempting to normalize its relations with Turkey. Therefore, any renewed discussion of the Armenian Genocide could harm the normalization process. Reportedly, Hovakimyan had conveyed the same message to other party leaders in Austria as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Journalist Daria Aslamova believes that the Pashinyan family had been planning the surrender of Artsakh long before coming to power in 2018.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI met Anna Hakobyan in 2013,\u201d Aslamova recalls. \u201cShe told me: \u2018Why do we need Karabakh? It should be turned into an autonomy. It\u2019s like a suitcase without a handle - only Russia needs it. Because of Karabakh, we\u2019re in an economic blockade, and all our borders are closed. Let\u2019s make Karabakh into something like the \u00c5land Islands.\u2019\u201d\nAslamova continues, \u201cThe \u00c5land Islands are officially part of Finland but function as an autonomous region under Swedish influence,\u201d Novoye Vremya quotes her as saying<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

Anna Hakobyan\u2019s Golden Hour Came During the \u201cVelvet Revolution\u201d<\/h3>
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Many politicians and public figures were aware of the subversive activities of Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s family in Armenia. However, during the euphoric days of the 2018 \u201cVelvet Revolution\u201d and the wave of nationwide support for Pashinyan, few dared to speak out publicly.\nOn April 22, 2018, during a rally, politician Zaruhi Postanjyan took to the stage and interrupted actor Hovhannes Azoyan\u2019s speech in an attempt to warn the public about Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s corruption. But Anna Hakobyan physically seized the microphone from Postanjyan and addressed the crowd herself:<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n