Watchdog

An Armenian businessman was hospitalized over the weekend after being beaten up in an attack he blamed on Ruben Hayrapetian, the wealthy and well-connected head of the Football Federation of Armenia (FFA).

The allegation is likely to rekindle controversy over Hayrapetian, three years after guards at a restaurant owned by his family beat a man to death -- an attack which prompted accusations that tycoons with ties to President Serzh Sarkisian's government enjoy impunity.

Arsen Avetisian, the majority shareholder in an airline that suspended operations last year, told RFE/RL's Armenian Service on August 17 that he was assaulted during a meeting with Hayrapetian at the FFA Football Academy two days earlier.

"Hayrapetian grabbed my hand, and when I tried to free my hand everybody else started hitting me," Avetisian said, speaking from his bed at a Yerevan hospital where he is recovering from a broken nose and other serious injuries. "I didn’t see who was hitting me as I lay on the ground."

"They then took me to another place. Ruben Hayrapetian was there and he continued to talk to me," he said.

Avetisian, who manages private carrier Air Armenia, declined to discuss what might have prompted the attack. He said he would provide more information "in the coming days."

Air Armenia is the former Soviet republic's largest airline, but it suspended flights late last year and is reportedly saddled with debt.

Avetisian’s, wife, Izabella Melkumian, published an open letter to President Serzh Sarkisian alleging that Hayrapetian and his bodyguards kidnapped her husband after the beating.

She claimed they demanded he sign a statement certifying that he owes Hayrapetian a substantial amount of money.

"I appealed to law-enforcement bodies but am worried about the safety of my husband and other members of our family," Melkumian said in the letter, entreating Sarkisian to ensure the family is protected by the state.

The Armenian police said that they were investigating the allegations. A police spokesperson refused to divulge any details of that inquiry.

News.am reported that Hayrapetian and two of his bodyguards were questioned by police investigators, and said the tycoon refused to comment when contacted by the online publication. Neither Hayrapetian nor his aides answered phone calls from RFE/RL's Armenian service.

Air Armenia reportedly has outstanding debts to at least one other airline and several banks.

The attack on Avetisian came a day after a Ukrainian investment fund, which recently bought a 49 percent stake in Air Armenia, announced that it has invested over $68 million in the troubled airline.

Hayrapetian was the target of a public outcry after several Armenian Army medics were attacked in June 2012 at Harsnakar, a Yerevan restaurant owned by Hayrapetian’s family. One of the medics -- Vahe Avetian, a 35-year-old father of three -- died, and two others were seriously injured after arguing with burly men working at the restaurant.

Avetian's death shocked the nation and sparked a series of angry street protests by hundreds of civic activists who saw the incident as a manifestation of impunity enjoyed by government-linked tycoons.

Zhanna Aleksanian, a veteran human rights activist and writer, said that Avetisian’s beating shows that the problem persists.

"The oligarchs who are members of [President] Serzh Sarkisian’s inner circle enjoy impunity,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “This is why such incidents recur. Only Serzh Sarkisian can tell how long this will continue.”

The outcry in 2012 prompted Hayrapetian to resign from the Armenian parliament and apologize to Avetian’s family. But he stayed on as chairman of the Football Federation of Armenia (FFA), denying any involvement in the beating, and he is a senior member of Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia.

In March 2014, six men believed to be Hayrapetian’s bodyguards were convicted of killing Avetian and sentenced to 12 years prison. An appeals court later upheld the verdict.

Hayrapetian was accused in November 2012 of beating up a doctor working for FC Pyunik, a soccer club controlled by him, and in 2014 he allegedly verbally and physically abused a Pyunik player during a match. Hayrapetian denied those allegations through the FFA’s press service.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned minority ethnic Tatars that they should not strive for special status on the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine last year.

Muslim Tatars compose more than 10 percent of Crimea's population and largely opposed the Russian takeover last year, mindful of the mass deportations under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin during World War II. They have come under pressure to align themselves with the new authorities since the annexation.

On a three-day visit to Crimea to promote tourism and development, Putin met representatives of various minorities on August 17, including the Tatars, at a luxury resort in the village of Opolznevoye.

"Interethnic relations are a delicate matter," Putin told the envoys. "I see any speculation on any sort of special rights for one particular ethnicity as extremely dangerous."

Putin suggested that foreign countries were funding rights activists in an effort to "destabilize the situation" by playing up problems faced by Crimean Tatars, the third-largest ethnic group after Russians and Ukrainians on the peninsula, and said that Moscow would not allow this.

"You and I know full well who we are talking about. There are a number people who consider themselves professional fighters for rights," he said, adding that "they want to receive foreign grants and acknowledgement and realize their ambitions, including political ambitions."

"Crimea is essentially a mirror of multiethnic Russia. Here, like everywhere in Russia, we need to pay the utmost, constant attention to building greater peace and harmony, combining the efforts of the state authorities and civil society," Putin said. "I therefore consider this meeting with you...very important indeed."

Russia has drawn criticism from the European rights watchdog OSCE, the United Nations, Council of Europe, and Turkey for its treatment of the Turkic-speaking minority. The Tatars are distrustful of Moscow after the 1944 mass deportation of their kin, which many did not survive.

Tatars started returning to Crimea in large numbers after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and enjoyed a cultural revival within Ukraine.

Since the March 2014 annexation, Russian security forces have raided their main assembly, or Mejlis, and evicted them from the premises. Russia also silenced the Tatars' television broadcaster, ATR.

Several local Tatar activists were reportedly killed, beaten, or went missing. Two top leaders of the community were barred from Crimea.

In March, a year after the Russian takeover, the U.S. State Department said that "the human rights situation in Crimea has deteriorated dramatically, with mounting repression of minority communities and faiths, in particular Crimean Tatars, and systematic denial of fundamental freedoms."

Moscow has also made conciliatory gestures to win the Crimean Tatars over. It granted them legal rehabilitation along with other ethnic minorities who suffered under Stalin -- though critics say this was merely a technicality -- and accorded official status to their language.

Putin offered longtime Tatar residents of Crimea Russian citizenship on his visit.

While trying to inhibit the work of Crimean Tatars loyal to Kyiv, Moscow has sought to promote new Tatar groups that would be willing to cooperate with the Kremlin.

The mix of pressure and promises has left Crimean Tatars increasingly split over whether to resist or deal with Russia.

With reporting by Reuters, TASS, and Interfax