The mother of an Armenian soldier killed in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan allegedly attempted to kidnap the son of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
A woman claiming to be the mother of a soldier who died in the war over the Karabakh region, allegedly lured Ashot Pashinian 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.
The woman told him about her son in the vehicle and that he had been taken to fight in the war without her consent, as she accelerated the car past the legal speed limit, Pashinian shared the details.
The woman reportedly expressed her desperation to Pashinian, saying she had nothing 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.
Pashinian recounted that he was able to 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 were launched on the matter.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a decadeslong dispute over the region of Karabakh, which lies within Azerbaijan but was under the illegal occupation of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.
Moscow brokered a peace deal last November to end six weeks of fighting over the territory, during which over 6,600 people were killed. The truce allowed Azerbaijan to reclaim control over large parts of Karabakh and surrounding areas that the Armenia-backed separatists controlled.
Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are expected to hold talks in Moldova next month. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are also expected to attend the talks.
