Aram Brunson, a 21 year old Newton man, was charged Thursday with trying to conceal bomb making skills after allegedly causing a dorm room explosion at the University of Chicago. He’s also charged with with lying to federal officials at Logan International Airport after his luggage set off alarms for explosives.
Brunson—a 2020 graduate of Newton North High School, where he was a member of the Model United Nations club and the Language Creation Club—is believed to be attending the American University of Armenia in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital city.
He has declined to return to the United States to address these charges, according to a statement by the United State’s Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors say Brunson was angry about the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region of Azerbaijan that is home to many Armenians. The blockade of this region by the Azerbaijani government led to severe shortages of food, healthcare, and fuel. The majority of Armenian residents fled after it was invaded by Azerbaijan in September of 2023.
On Jan. 2, 2023, the Chicago Fire Department responded to a call from a University of Chicago dormitory. After extinguishing the fire, the fire department, along with the Chicago Bomb Squad, entered Brunson’s dorm room. They reportedly found numerous items used in the production of explosives.
Brunson initially said he was cooking on a hot plate, but then later told the FBI he was trying to make flares based off of YouTube video guides to create prank videos.
After obtaining a search warrant, the FBI found videos of Brunson discussing how to form an Armenian revolutionary group, including how to make and transport bombs. The videos were in Armenian, because he felt he would be less likely to get caught than if he had made them in English, which he claimed had been the downfall of another revolutionary group.
The indictment says he searched for addresses of Turkish and Azerbaijani ambassadors and looked at pages about grappling hooks, guns, and building access.
Agents also reportedly found evidence that in 2022, Brunson and an unnamed individual tried and failed to acquire military training while on a trip to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Brunson was inducted into the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, an Armenian nationalist organization, in 2022.
After the dorm room fire, Brunson reportedly moved back in with his parents in Newton. On Aug.20, 2023, Brunson had a ticket to fly from Boston to Paris and then to Yerevan. He was traveling with his grandmother and a female family friend.
After his luggage set off TSA alarms for explosive materials, prosecutors say Brunson lied to customs personnel, saying he had no idea why his items would have any trace of explosive material.
On Aug. 23, federal officials searched his family’s home in Newton, where they reportedly found detailed formulas for making hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, an explosive that can be synthesized from commercially available products.
Brunson has written numerous articles for The Armenian Weekly, an English-language publication run by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. In one article, he criticizes the Armenian-American response to the blockade: “We have called Congressional staffers while waiting for a lunch table at a nice restaurant, and we have even troubled ourselves to send some emails. We have held fundraisers for Artsakh, and the more ambitious among us have even staged a few small protests. Yet none of these activities have netted any positive effect on the current situation, and there is little to suggest that they ever will.”
He also wrote other pieces about revolutionary activity in Armenia.