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    Categories: 2018

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 06/25/2018

                                        Monday, 

Ex-General’s Son Also Charged With Embezzlement


Armenia - Mayor Karen Grigorian (second from left) joins his supporters 
rallying in Echmiadzin, 16 June 2018.

The former mayor of Echmiadzin has been charged with embezzling aid donated to 
the Armenian military together with his arrested father, retired General Manvel 
Grigorian.

Grigorian was arrested on June 16 when Armenia’s National Security Service 
(NSS) raided his properties in and around Echmiadzin. An official video of 
searches conducted there showed NSS officers finding large amounts of weapons, 
ammunition, medication and field rations for soldiers provided by the Armenian 
Defense Ministry.

They also discovered canned food and several vehicles donated by Armenians at 
one of Grigorian’s mansions. The private donations were made during the April 
2016 fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Karen Grigorian resigned as Echmiadzin mayor immediately after the embarrassing 
video was aired by Armenian TV channels and widely shared on social media on 
June 17. He governed the town located about 20 kilometers west of Yerevan for 
almost ten years.

The Special Investigative Service (SIS), which is conducting the high-profile 
investigation, said Karen Grigorian was charged on Friday with helping his 
father misappropriate three military vans that were contributed by the Armenian 
Diaspora in Russia in 2016.

The SIS did not arrest Grigorian and instead had him sign a formal pledge not 
to leave the country until the inquiry is over. It was not immediately known 
whether the former mayor will plead guilty to the accusation carrying between 
four and eight years in prison.


Armenia - Retired General Manvel Grigorian speaks at a congress of the 
Yerkrapah Union in Yerevan, 18 February 2017.

Manvel Grigorian, 61, has denied the more serious charges levelled against him. 
According to his lawyers, he has told investigators that the supplies found in 
his property were shipped to and from there by other senior members of the 
Yerkrapah Union of Karabakh war veterans without his knowledge.

Grigorian, who was a prominent field commander during the war, has headed the 
union linked to the military for almost two decades. Its governing board 
decided on Saturday to suspend Grigorian as Yerkrapah chairman and convene an 
emergency congress of the once powerful organization.

Grigorian, who served as deputy defense minister from 2000-2008, has held sway 
in Echmiadzin and surrounding villages for more than two decades. He strongly 
supported former President Serzh Sarkisian throughout the latter’s decade-long 
rule. Armenian media outlets have long accused the ex-general and his family 
members of corruption, violent conduct and other abuses.




New Charge Brought Against ‘Violent’ Mayor


Armenia - Davit Hambardsumyan, Mayor of Masis, Yerevan, 2 Jun, 2018

Law-enforcement authorities have filed another criminal charge against the 
embattled mayor of an Armenian town stemming from violent attacks on opposition 
supporters who protested against the country’s longtime leader, Serzh 
Sarkisian, in April.

Mayor Davit Hambardzumian of Masis, who is affiliated with Sarkisian’s 
Republican Party (HHK), was detained and charged late last month with 
organizing one such assault in Yerevan on April 22.

The incident occurred just hours after Nikol Pashinian, the main organizer of 
mass protests against Sarkisian’s continued rule, was detained by security 
forces. Hundreds of Pashinian supporters demonstrating there were attacked by 
several dozen masked men wielding sticks and even electric shock guns.

Hambardzumian denied any involvement in the attack. A Yerevan court refused to 
allow investigators to keep him and four other suspects in pre-trial detention. 
They all were set free three days after their arrest.

Armenia’s Investigative Committee said on Monday that it has collected “factual 
evidence” of the Masis mayor’s involvement in another violent incident reported 
later on April 22. Residents of the southern Ararat province encompassing Masis 
were attacked by a smaller group of other individuals as they marched to 
Yerevan to take part in an anti-government rally.

According to an Investigative Committee statement, four protesters sustained 
major injuries as a result. One of them was shot and wounded.

The law-enforcement agency claimed to have identified the shooter. It said the 
suspect, a Masis resident, is now on the run.

The statement insisted that Hambardzumian was also among the attackers. He was 
formally charged with grave “hooliganism” on Sunday, it said. If convicted, the 
mayor will risk between four and seven years in prison.

Hambardzumian, 32, was elected mayor in 2016 with the help of the HHK. Eight 
senior parliamentarians representing the former ruling party called for his 
release from custody following his arrest a month ago.




Armenia Continues To Back Russia At UN


U.S. -- A session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, December 
21, 2017.

Armenia has again sided with Russia at the United Nations General Assembly, 
underscoring its new government’s intention not to change the country’s 
traditional foreign policy orientation.

Armenia was among 15 nations -- including Russia, Belarus, Iran and North Korea 
-- that voted against a General Assembly resolution calling for the withdrawal 
of Russian troops from the breakaway Transdniester region of Moldova.

The nonbinding resolution was adopted late on June 22 by a vote of 64 to 15, 
with 83 abstentions in the 193-nation assembly. It was co-sponsored by Britain, 
Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine and seven other mostly eastern European countries.

Transdniester is considered one of the many "frozen conflicts" in the former 
Soviet Union. The mainly Russian-speaking region declared independence from 
Moldova in 1990 over fears that Chisinau would seek reunification with 
neighboring Romania. Moldovan forces and Moscow-backed Transdniester fighters 
fought a short but bloody war in 1992.

The conflict ended with a cease-fire agreement after Russian troops in the 
region intervened on the side of the separatists. Some 1,400 Russian troops 
remain in Transdniester guarding Soviet-era arms depots, and Moscow has 
resisted numerous calls over the years to withdraw its troops.

Armenia’s decision to vote against the resolution on Transdniester was 
consistent with its voting record at the UN and other international 
organizations. Yerevan has usually opposed measures critical of Russia, the 
South Caucasus state’s leading ally. Those include a 2014 General Assembly 
resolution that that condemned Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and upheld 
Ukraine’s sovereignty over the Black Sea peninsula.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly pledged to keep his country 
allied to Russia since he swept to power in a democratic revolution last month. 
“Nobody … will cast doubt on the strategic importance of Russian-Armenian 
relations,” he told Russian President Vladimir Putin at their first meeting 
held in Sochi on May 14.

For his part, Putin expressed hope that Yerevan and Moscow will continue to 
cooperate in the international arena. He singled out the UN, noting that 
“Armenia and Russia have always supported each other” there.




Sarkisian’s Brother, Top Bodyguard Detained

        • Ruzanna Stepanian

Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian (L) and his chief bodyguard Vachagan 
Ghazarian, 11 July 2015.

A controversial brother and the chief bodyguard of Armenia’s former President 
Serzh Sarkisian were detained on Monday.

It was not immediately clear whether law-enforcement authorities will press 
criminal charges against them.

A spokesman for the Armenian police, Ashot Aharonian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian 
service (Azatutyun.am) that Aleksandr Sarkisian was detained on suspicion of 
illegal arms possession. A short amateur video posted on Facebook showed masked 
policemen hauling him and his bodyguards out of their cars in downtown Yerevan.

Sarkisian was set free several hours later. Aharonian said the police are now 
checking the legality of weapons possessed by him and his men.

Sarkisian, who is better known to the public as “Sashik,” has repeatedly caused 
controversy in the past with his flamboyant behavior and insults addressed to 
critics of Armenia’s former governments.

The 62-year-old is thought to have made a big fortune in the past two decades. 
Unconfirmed reports in the Armenian press have said that he spent millions of 
dollars buying real estate in Europe and the United States.


Armenia - Aleksandr Sarkisian.

Tax inspectors raided on Saturday the offices of a real estate company in 
Yerevan at least partly controlled by Serzh Sarkisian’s second, youngest 
brother Levon and his family. The State Revenue Committee (SRC) accused the 
company of failing to pay 300 million drams ($625,000) in taxes. Nobody has 
been arrested yet as part of that criminal case.

Earlier on Monday, the National Security Service (NSS), detained Serzh 
Sarkisian’s longtime chief bodyguard, Vachagan Ghazarian. An NSS spokesman 
declined to say whether that is connected with more than $1.1 million and 
230,000 euros ($267,000) in cash confiscated from Ghazarian’s Yerevan apartment 
late last week.

The money was found during a joint operation conducted by the police and 
another law-enforcement body, the Investigative Committee. The committee said 
Ghazarian and his wife failed to disclose it in their income and asset 
declarations submitted to an anti-corruption state commission.

Such declarations are mandatory for Armenia’s high-ranking state officials and 
their close relatives. Ghazarian was such an official until Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian dismissed him last month as first deputy head of a security 
agency providing bodyguards to the country’s leaders.




Armenian Coup Suspect Freed For Now

        • Anush Mkrtchian

Armenia - Former Deputy Defense Minister Vahan Shirkhanian is released from 
custody, .

A veteran Armenian politician accused of plotting to seize power together with 
members of a clandestine militant group was released from custody on Monday 
pending the outcome of their ongoing trial.

Vahan Shirkhanian, a former deputy defense minister, is one of the 20 
individuals who went on trial on coup charges in December 2015. Most of them 
were detained in a dawn raid on their hideout in Yerevan. Armenian security 
forces found large quantities of weapons and explosives stashed there.

Those arrested in that raid were apparently led by Artur Vartanian, a 
36-year-old obscure man who reportedly lived in Spain until his return to 
Armenia in April 2015.

Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) claims that the core members of 
Vartanian’s group called Hayots Vahan Gund (Armenian Shield Regiment) underwent 
secret military training in an Armenian village in August-September 2015. It 
says that Vartanian and his associates drew up detailed plans for the seizure 
of the presidential administration, government, parliament, Constitutional 
Court and state television buildings in Yerevan.

According to the prosecution, Shirkhanian agreed to participate in the alleged 
plot and suggested in 2015 that the armed group assassinate then President 
Serzh Sarkisian, instead of focusing on the seizure of the key state buildings. 
Shirkhanian denies the accusations as politically motivated,

A Yerevan judge presiding over the high-profile trial on Monday agreed to free 
him for now after two members of the Armenian parliament guaranteed in writing 
that the 71-year-old will not attempt to escape justice. Both lawmakers are 
affiliated with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party.


Armenia - An alleged 2015 photograph of members of an Armenian militant group 
arrested on coup charges.
As he walked free in the courtroom Shirkhanian said his provisional release was 
made possible by the recent change of Armenia’s government. “I congratulate all 
of you on the end of the rule of evil in Armenia,” he told reporters.

The case against Shirkhanian is based in large measure on his conversation with 
Vartanian which took place in his home and was secretly recorded. The trial 
prosecutors publicized the transcript of that conversation during a court 
hearing in December 2017.

According to that text, the two men seemed to discuss ways of achieving a 
violent overthrow of the government. In particular, Shirkhanian was quoted as 
saying that then Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian “hates” Sarkisian’s and the 
presidential entourage and “will do what we say” immediately after the 
president is eliminated. In that context, he spoke of a possibility of the 
presidential plane “taking off and falling down.”

Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service earlier in 2017, Shirkhanian’s lawyer, 
Hayk Alumian, said the wiretap is “illegal” and its content is “equivocal and 
can be interpreted in different ways.”



Press Review



(Saturday, June 23)

“Zhamanak” looks at the new Armenian government’s anti-corruption efforts, 
saying that they must also lead to new legislative measures that would prevent 
corrupt practices in the country. The paper says it is also essential that the 
Armenian society becomes more intolerant of corruption and “shames” anyone who 
abuses their powers.

“Aravot” says that notorious figures like Manvel Grigorian and Arakel Movsisian 
stopped using abusive language in public after being interrogated by the 
National Security Service (NSS). “They now have to be more restrained and 
humble because nobody stands by them anymore,” writes the paper. “But it would 
be a gross exaggeration to claim that this mentality has been eliminated 
because if you are not part of a rejected team you may still not give a damn 
about the law.” It points out that members of an armed group that seized a 
police station in Yerevan in July 2016 remain unrepentant about their violent 
“feats” after being released from custody.

“168 Zham” comments on a new Armenian law on benevolence that prompted strong 
objections from businessman Gagik Tsarukian and members of his political force. 
“Of course, everyone realizes that this was a way of demonstrating force,” 
writes the paper. “This knee-jerk reaction not only highlighted the fact that 
in our country benevolence has pronounced political implications but also 
showed what kind of resistance there will be if the National Assembly is 
presented with a bill really limiting the impact of money and capital on 
political processes.” Only fresh parliamentary elections can enable Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian to make good on his pledge to separate business from 
politics, concludes the paper.

(Tatev Danielian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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