Court finds Armenian premier motorcade driver guilty of accidental  manslaughter

ArmInfo.  A court in Yerevan has issued a verdict in the case of the fatal hit-and-run of pregnant Sona Mnatsakanyan, after she was hit by a car accompanying Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's motorcade.

Police Major Aram Navasardyan (the driver of the car) was found  guilty, and the preventive measure chosen against him - a written  undertaking not to leave the republic - was left unchanged.

The court has scheduled an additional hearing to determine the  preventive measure, which will take place on August 13 at 12:00

On April 26, 2022, at about 18:05, in Yerevan, a police car  accompanying the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia hit a  29-year-old pregnant woman at a pedestrian crossing at the  intersection of Leo and Paronyan streets in Yerevan. She was taken to  Nairi Medical Center, where she died.

As the lawyer for the deceased woman's legal successor had previously  stated, the preliminary examination confirmed that the driver had  violated the speed limit. Thus, the speed of a special purpose  vehicle escort, an escort vehicle in cities and towns, should not  have exceeded 100 km/h, but it was approximately 108 km/h.

Sona Mnatsakanyan's mother noted that her daughter's death did not  occur immediately, according to the examination, after approximately  1.5 hours. "Whatever instructions the driver received - to stop or  not to stop, he was humanly obliged to stop, even if he was  threatened with dismissal from work. The Prime Minister of the  Republic was obliged to stop and see what happened there. This, it  seems to me, does not require any comments at all," Sona  Mnatsakanyan's mother Armine Makinyan had previously stated.

Meanwhile, on July 16, 2025, at a press conference, Prime Minister  Pashinyan stated that it was not his personal car that hit  Mnatsakanyan in April 2022. According to the Prime Minister, he  personally had nothing to do with what happened. "If you are sitting  in a subway car, and the subway hits a person, what do you have to do  with it?" Pashinyan asked.