The Office of the Armenian General Prosecutor has opened a preliminary investigation against former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan as part of the investigation into the crackdown on Yerevan's protests on March 1 2008. This was announced by the Armenian General Prosecutor on 14 January. In 2008, Ohanyan was head of the General Staff of Armenia. 

Similar to the arrested Robert Kocharyan, the former president of Armenia, Ohanyan is accused of "overthrowing the constitutional order".

Ohanyan himself described the allegations against him as "unfounded". In his statement, he pointed among other things to the leaked recordings of phone calls between the head of the National Security Service and the head of the Special Investigation Service of Armenia, which in his view prove the influence of the government on the judiciary.

Seyran Ohanyan, who actively participated in the Nagorno-Karabakh war and headed the Armenian Ministry of Defense from 2008 to 2016, demanded respect for his service for Armenia. He also complained that the justice system was acting unconstitutionally. The justice should not be carried out according to concerns -or under the public pressure of the street, stated Ohanyan.

Seyran Ohanyan was dismissed from office after the three-day conflict escalation in Nagorno Karabakh in April 2016, which caused several casualties. He then moved to the opposition, but his electoral alliance failed with 2.7% in the 2017 parliamentary election.

Since the so-called "velvet revolution" in Armenia, the "March 1st case" has been re-opened. Thus, the former head of the investigation team, Vaagn Harutyunyan, has already been arrested. The Armenian authorities were unable to arrest the former Minister of Defense, Mikael Harutyunyan, who is also being investigated for the "overthrow of the constitutional order", because he already claimed Russian citizenship and lives in Russia now.

The investigations are considered politically explosive for several reasons. For today's Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, one of the closest confidants of the failed presidential candidate, Ter-Petrosyan, had co-organized the protests in 2008 and had to spend two years in prison under Serzh Sargsyan's government for undermining the public order. A revision of the investigation results in the "March 1st case" was one of his promises during the revolution in spring 2018.

The fact that Pashinyan’s government now attempts to criminally persecute the former government elite, is seen negatively in Russia. Because the now-detained former president, Robert Kocharyan, is considered not only as a dangerous opponent of the new government, but also as a close friend of Vladimir Putin and as a pro-Russian politician in general. For example, recently Putin wished him Merry Christmas and hoped for him to be "imperturbable". Putin also called Kocharyan on his 60th birthday. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov indirectly criticized the arrest of Kocharyan and even spoke of "political vendetta" in Armenia.