YEREVAN–Armenia’s former education minister and the current dean of the Mkhitar Sepastatsi school Ashot Bleyan was arrested Friday en route to a conference scheduled to take place at the offices of the Armenian National Movement.
The prosecutor general’s office confirmed reports of Bleyan’s arrest–citing a violation of the terms of an earlier investigative inquiry detention–which stipulated that Bleyan could not leave the confines of Yerevan-proper. Bleyan is being charged with misappropriation of funds–embezzlement and abuse of power as the director of the aforementioned educational institute.
Bleyan–a close ally of former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan– has been notorious for his posturing on the Karabakh conflict. At the height of the Karabakh war with Azerbaijan he visited Baku and articulated concessions which went against the course of the political policies of the Karabakh government. As education minister–Bleyan advocated for the abolishment of the Genocide from Armenia’s public school curriculum–saying that the new generation of Armenia’s must be exposed to "more pleasant" topics. He currently is the chairman of the New Path party–a splinter group of the ANM.
