Thursday,
Pashinian Demands ‘New Impetus’ To Fight Against Corruption
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian discusses with the heads of
law-enforcement agencies the fight against corruption, Yerevan, September 20,
2019.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Friday ordered Armenian law-enforcement
authorities to step up their anti-corruption efforts and, in particular,
recover more public funds embezzled or wasted by former officials.
Pashinian met with the heads of Armenia’s law-enforcement agencies and State
Oversight Service to discuss what his press office described as further
“measures planned in the fight against corruption.”
“I believe that we need to give new impetus to the fight against corruption
and, if I can put it this way, restart this process,” he said in his opening
remarks publicized by the office. “I find that extremely important not only in
terms of solving corruption-related crimes committed in the past. I am also
convinced that if we are not principled enough on this issue corruption is a
phenomenon which will find ways of adapting to the new conditions and showing
the ability to come back in a phased, slow, creeping fashion.”
The meeting came just days after Pashinian forced the resignations of the chief
of the Armenian police, Valeri Osipian, and the director of the National
Security Service (NSS), Artur Vanetsian, for still unclear reasons.
Vanetsian had overseen some of the most high-profile corruption investigations
launched in Armenia since last year’s “Velvet Revolution.” He criticized
Pashinian’s “spontaneous” leadership style in a September 16 statement that
announced his resignation.
Pashinian said on Wednesday that Vanetsian’s exit will not reflect negatively
on his administration’s anti-graft drive. “In the new Armenia the NSS is not a
[single] individual, the NSS is a system and it will go after all current and
former corrupt individuals, spies and other elements of this kind,” he wrote on
Facebook.
Vanetsian and Osipian were replaced on a temporary basis by their respective
deputies: Eduard Martirosian and Arman Sargsian. Both men attended the
corruption-related meeting held by Pashinian.
Armenia - Vachagan Ghazarian, ex-President Serzh Sarkisian's former chief
bodyguard, empties his bag filled with cash after being arrested by the
National Security Service in Yerevan, 25 June 2018.
The 44-year-old prime minister has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated
“systemic corruption” in the country since he swept to power in May 2018.
During his 16-month rule, law-enforcement authorities have brought serious
corruption charges against dozens of persons, including close relatives and
cronies of former President Serzh Sarkisian.
Pashinian said on Friday that the state has recovered a total of 51 billion
drams ($107 million) in lost public publics as a result of those criminal
cases. He said that while this is “not a small sum” the law-enforcement bodies
can do “much more.” He stressed at the same time that they must avoid
“repressions” or other violations of the due process in that endeavor.
Pashinian already said on August 30 that Armenians expect a tougher
anti-corruption fight from the authorities and that the latter are creating
“new institutional structures” for that purpose. He praised an anti-graft
strategy and a three-year action plan drafted by the Armenian Justice Ministry
in June.
The documents call, among other things, for the creation of anti-corruption
courts and a special law-enforcement agency empowered to prosecute state
officials suspected of bribery, fraud and other corrupt practices.
Kocharian Again Denied Bail
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian waves to supporters during his
trial, Yerevan, .
Three days after deciding not to recognize Robert Kocharian’s arrest and
prosecution as unconstitutional, a court in Yerevan also refused on Friday to
release the former Armenian president from prison on bail.
Anna Danibekian, the judge presiding over the trial of Kocharian and three
other former senior officials, thus dismissed defense lawyers’ assertions that
he never attempted to hide from justice or obstruct the criminal investigation
into the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.
The lawyers requested bail for their client on Tuesday immediately after
Danibekian rejected their interpretation of a recent ruling handed down by
Armenia’s Constitutional Court. The trial prosecutors objected to the bail
request. One of them spoke of a “very high risk” of Kocharian going into hiding
and/or exerting “illegal influence” on witnesses in the event of his release.
The Constitutional Court ruled on September 4 that an article of the Armenian
Code of Procedural Justice used against Kocharian is unconstitutional because
it does not take account of current and former senior Armenian officials’ legal
immunity from prosecution. According to the ex-president’s attorneys, this
means that he must be set free and cleared of coup charges.
Armenia -- Judge Anna Danibekian presides over the trial of former President
Robert Kocharian, Yerevan, .
The lawyers said on Tuesday that Danibekian bowed to what they called strong
pressure exerted on her by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his political
allies. One of them, Hayk Alumian, condemned the judge in even stronger terms
after she refused to grant Kocharian bail.
“The court has thus become a tool for Mr. Kocharian’s political persecution,”
Alumian charged in the courtroom. The court is now acting like a government
tool.”
Alumian went on to demand that Danibekian recuse herself from the case. “You
are unable to administer justice in this case because you are under the
influence of the force persecuting Mr. Kocharian for political purposes,” the
lawyer told her.
The 41-year-old judge said she will respond to the demand at the next court
hearing which she scheduled for October 7.
The high-profile case was assigned to Danibekian less than a month ago.
Kocharian’s trial was previously presided over by another judge, Davit
Grigorian. The latter ordered Kocharian freed from custody on May 18. He also
suspended the trial, questioning the legality of the coup charges leveled
against the man who ruled Armenia from 1998-2008.
Grigorian was suspended by judicial authorities in July after a law-enforcement
agency charged him with forgery. The judge denies the accusation.
Armenia -- District court judge Davit Grigorian leaves the courtroom after
ordering former President Robert Kocharian's release from prison, May 18, 2019.
The Constitutional Court ruling on the case also angered the authorities.
Pashinian denounced it as “illegal,” while the pro-government majority in the
Armenian parliament decided to appeal to the high court to replace its
chairman, Hrayr Tovmasian. Majority leaders accused Tovmasian of serious
procedural violations and conflict of interest.
Kocharian, his former chief of staff Armen Gevorgian and retired army Generals
Seyran Ohanian and Yuri Khachaturov stand accused of overthrowing the
constitutional order in the wake of a disputed presidential election held in
February 2008. The prosecution says that they illegally used the Armenian
military against opposition protesters that demanded the rerun of the ballot.
All four defendants deny the accusations. Kocharian, who was also charged with
bribery early this year, has repeatedly accused Pashinian of waging a
“political vendetta” against him. The authorities deny political any motives
behind the case.
Kocharian declared a state of emergency and ordered army units into Yerevan
late on March 1, 2008 amid violent clashes between protesters and security
forces which left ten people dead. He handed over power to Serzh Sarkisian, his
preferred successor and official election winner, in April 2008.
Fugitive Ex-Official Faces More Corruption Charges
• Susan Badalian
Armenia - Mihran Poghosian, head of the Service for the Mandatory Execution of
Judicial Acts, at a news conference in Yerevan, January 25, 2013.
Investigators have brought fresh corruption charges against Mihran Poghosian, a
former senior Armenian official who fled to Russia after being first indicted
in Armenia early this year.
The Special Investigative Service (SIS) alleged on Friday that Poghosian
laundered in 2015 $1.2 million in cash acquired through illegal
entrepreneurship and tax evasion. It said the money was channeled into an
Armenian company belonging to him in the form of interest-free loans.
According to an SIS statement, one of those “loans” worth $690,000 was
transferred from the bank account of a firm registered in Panama.
“We can’t give other details at the moment,” a spokeswoman for the
law-enforcement agency, Marina Ohanjanian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “The
investigation is continuing.”
Citing leaked documents known as the Panama Papers, an Armenian investigative
website reported in April 2016 that Poghosian controls three shadowy firms
registered in the Central American state. Poghosian dismissed the report at the
time. Nevertheless, he resigned as head of Armenia’s Service for the Mandatory
Execution of Judicial Acts (SMEJA) shortly afterwards.
A year later, Poghosian was elected to the Armenian parliament on the ticket of
then President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party. He was widely regarded as an
influential figure in Armenia’s former leadership toppled during the 2018
“Velvet Revolution.”
The 43-year-old was already charged in April this year with embezzling at least
64.2 million drams ($135,000) in public funds while in office. He dismissed the
charges as politically motivated.
Later in April, Poghosian was detained in Russia on an Armenian arrest warrant.
However, Russian prosecutors subsequently refused to extradite him to Armenia.
The Russian ambassador in Yerevan, Sergey Kopyrkin, insisted last week that
Poghosian was not granted political asylum in Russia. “According to my
information, we are talking about a legal process, about the provision of
necessary documents [to the Russian authorities,]” he said.
Biden Calls For U.S. Recognition Of Armenian Genocide
• Heghine Buniatian
U.S. -- Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and former Vice President
Joe Biden walks with supporters at the Independence Day parade in Independence,
Iowa, July 4, 2019.
U.S. Democratic presidential frontrunner and former Vice President Joe Biden
has called for an official U.S. recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide in
Ottoman Turkey.
“The United States must reaffirm, once and for all, our record on the Armenian
Genocide,” Biden said in a letter to the Armenian National Committee of America
(ANCA) released by the lobby group on Friday.
“We must never forget or remain silent about this horrific and systematic
campaign of extermination that resulted in the deaths of 1.5 million Armenian
men, women, and children and the mass deportation of 2 million Armenians from
their homes,” he wrote. “If we do not fully acknowledge, commemorate, and teach
our children about genocide, the words “never again” lose their meaning.”
“Failing to remember or acknowledge the fact of a genocide only paves the way
for future mass atrocities,” he added.
Biden, who is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 2020
presidential election, was a strong backer of Armenian genocide recognition as
a member the U.S. Senate. In particular, he co-sponsored in 2007 a relevant
resolution that never reached the Senate floor.
The ANCA noted this fact in a statement. But it also pointed out that former
President Barack Obama failed to honor his campaign pledges to reaffirm his
recognition of the genocide if elected.
“The Obama-Biden Administration … pivoted hard against the spirit and letter of
its high-profile campaign pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide, deepening
official U.S. complicity in Turkey’s genocide denials and ongoing obstruction
of justice for this crime,” read the ANCA statement.
U.S. - U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, U.S. Ambassador to UN Samantha Power,
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian
attend a ceremony at the Washington National Cathedral to mark the centennial
of the Armenian genocide, 7May2015.
In 2010, Biden controversially claimed that then Armenian President Serzh
Sarkisian had asked Washington not to “force” the issue of genocide recognition
while Turkish-Armenian negotiations are in progress. Sarkisian denied the claim.
In May 2015, Biden joined Sarkisian and over two thousand Armenian Americans in
attending a ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide
held at Washington’s National Cathedral.
In an April 2015 statement, Obama again avoided using the word “genocide” in
reference to the mass killings. He at the same time implicitly praised Pope
Francis for honoring the victims of what the pontiff called “the first genocide
of the 20th century” in a Vatican Mass. Obama also paid tribute to Henry
Morgenthau, America’s First World War-era ambassador in Constantinople who
tried to stop what he saw as a “campaign of race extermination” by the Ottoman
Turks.
Press Review
Lragir.am says that “circles close to Armenia’s former regime” and like-minded
commentators in Russia are spreading claims about a deterioration of
Russian-Armenian relations. “Armenia continues to participate in Russian-led
blocs, vote in Russia’s favor in international structures and fulfill all of
its contractual obligations,” counters the pro-Western publication. “There have
been no official statements [by Armenian leaders] on their revision.” In this
regard, it quotes a Russian analyst, Modest Kolerov, as saying that Moscow is
unhappy with the continuing imprisonment of former President Robert Kocharian
and Yerevan’s stated efforts to strike arms deals with third countries. The
publication argues that not only Nikol Pashinian but also Serzh Sarkisian vowed
to develop Armenia’s defense industry.
“Zhamanak” is puzzled by Pashinian’s decision to appoint Valeri Osipian as his
chief adviser right after removing him from the post of chief of the Armenian
police. “Valeri Osipian is a policeman by profession and supposedly cannot give
the prime minister professional advice on any other field,” writes the paper.
“It must therefore be noted that his appointment [as chief adviser] is a
political act. Is Nikol Pashinian thereby stopping Valeri Osipian from talking
about the reasons for his resignation?” Osipian promised to give those reasons
“later on” at a farewell meeting with senior police officials held on September
18. The paper speculates that he thus threatened to “speak up if something is
not done” by Pashinian.
“Aravot” weighs in on an unfolding debate over whether Armenia’s police and
National Security Service (NSS) should be headed by career officers or
political appointees. “There is no definitive answer to this question,”
editorializes the paper. It points out that both security agencies were already
run by political figures in the 1990s. It believes that the government should
curtail the NSS’s powers, saying that the Armenian successor to the Soviet KGB
should not deal with crimes like corruption and tax evasion.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2019 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org