Armenian court upholds acquittal of Artsakh refugee who threw apple  at Armenian premier 

ArmInfo.The Criminal Court of Appeals upheld the acquittal of 72- year-old Artsakh resident and  refugee Albert Arustamyan, who threw an apple at Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in 2024.

Artsakh lawyer Roman Yeritsyan announced this on his Facebook page.  "The Criminal Court of Appeals upheld the acquittal of Albert  Arstamyan, who threw an apple at Pashinyan," Yeritsyan wrote.

As a reminder, the incident occurred in 2024, when Pashinyan was  visiting Yerevan's Kanaker-Zeytun district. At that moment, Albert  Arustamyan, who was in his ninth-floor apartment, threw an apple at  Pashinyan and was subsequently detained. On May 26, 2025, the court  of first instance acquitted Arustamyan due to insufficient evidence  to support the charges. Later, on August 7, the Prosecutor General's  Office of Armenia appealed this decision.

According to Yeritsyan, Arustamyan, who is a second-category disabled  person, was treated roughly. He was detained and taken to the police  station, and the following morning, he was transferred to a pretrial  detention center. That same day, law enforcement officers searched  his apartment in the presence of his young children, searching for  apples of the same variety. Witnesses to the incident (children from  the neighborhood) reported that Nikol Pashinyan and his security  guards assumed a grenade had been thrown at them and immediately lay  down on the ground.