Friday,
Defense Contractor Protests Against ‘Illegal’ Arrest
• Gayane Saribekian
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia -- A screenshot of a National Security Service vide of the arrest of
defense contractor Davit Galstian, February 1, 2021
The owner of a company supplying Armenia’s armed forces with weapons and
ammunition on Friday strongly denied fraud charges leveled against him and said
he was arrested illegally.
The businessman, Davit Galstian, protested his innocence as the Court of Appeals
opened hearings on his pre-trial arrest which was sanctioned by a lower court
earlier this month.
The charges stem from a $1 million contract for the supply of artillery shells
which Galstian’s Mosston Engineering company signed with the Armenian Defense
Ministry in 2018.
In a February 1 statement, the National Security Service (NSS) said the company
breached the contract by providing the ministry with ammunition designed for
older and different artillery systems. It said artillery units could not
accomplish their “combat tasks” with those shells.
A Yerevan court of first instance agreed to remand Galstian and Mosston’s
executive director, Armen Baghdasarian, in custody pending investigation. The
suspects asked the Court of Appeals to overturn that decision.
“The court of first instance made an illegal decision,” Galstian’s lawyer
insisted after the first Court of Appeals hearing. He said the ammunition sold
to the Armenian military “fully corresponded to the requirements of the supply
contract.”
Galstian is also facing three other criminal investigations into his companies’
dealings with the military. The NSS has so far released no details of those
inquiries.
It remains unclear whether any current or former Defense Ministry officials are
also under investigation.
In a written statement issued on Friday, Galstian blamed his “illegal” arrest
and prosecution on “interested individuals” who he said what to scapegoat him
for Armenia’s defeat in the autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh. In that regard, he
pointed the finger at unnamed individuals who have alleged corrupt practices in
the Armenian government’s military procurements.
Former President Serzh Sarkisian made such allegations earlier this week in
response to government loyalists’ claims that during his decade-long rule
widespread corruption had a severe impact on national security.
Sarkisian charged that before and during the six-week war the current government
bypassed the Defense Ministry to buy weapons and ammunition at grossly inflated
prices. In particular, he said, it purchased flak jackets for Armenian soldiers
for as much as $600 apiece.
A spokesman for Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service
on Friday that law-enforcement authorities are looking into Sarkisian’s
allegations
The official, Gor Abrahamian, said at the same time that the NSS launched in
November an inquiry into the supply of flak jackets. He would not say whether
anybody has been charged as part of that probe.
Armenian Authorities Reaffirm Plans For Limited COVID-19 Vaccination
• Marine Khachatrian
RUSSIA -- A medical worker holds a vial with Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against
the coronavirus at a vaccination point at the GUM department store in Moscow,
January 18, 2021.
Armenian health authorities have reaffirmed plans to start vaccinating next
month “high risk” groups of the country’s population against COVID-19.
According to a directive signed by Health Minister Anahit Avanesian on Monday,
the “first phase” of vaccination will cover medical workers, care home
personnel, persons aged 65 and older as well as younger Armenians suffering from
chronic diseases. Military and law-enforcement personnel, rescue and public
transport workers, civil servants, schoolteachers and university lecturers will
be the next to get vaccine shots free of charge.
Avanesian gave no detailed timetables for the vaccination process when she spoke
with journalists on Thursday. She said only that it will start in March.
Nor did Avanesian specify how many Armenians will have access to free
inoculation against the coronavirus. She indicated that many people not included
in either “high risk” category will have to pay for their vaccination.
“The quantity of vaccines imported to Armenia will depend on a number of
factors, including their price and the amount of money the state can allocate
for their acquisition,” she said.
Gayane Sahakian, the deputy director of the Armenian National Center for Disease
Control, said last month that the authorities are planning to vaccinate only 10
percent of Armenia’s population.
Sahakian said the first batch of a relatively cheap vaccine developed by the
British company AstraZeneca and Oxford University will be delivered to the
country soon. She said it will be supplied by the COVAX Facility global
partnership supported by the World Health Organization.
Avanesian stated early this month that the Armenian government would also like
to buy Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine and is negotiating with Moscow for
that purpose. No contracts for its acquisition have been announced so far.
The minister said on Thursday that the health authorities have also approved the
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. “It’s just that there are issues related to ensuring
Pfizer’s storage temperature and they need to be solved,” she said.
“From the purely logistical standpoint, Sputnik V has some advantages,” Davit
Melik-Nubarian, a public health expert, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“For example, while Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require a special regime for
storage and transportation, namely a very low temperature, and are very
sensitive to shaking, there are no such requirements in the case of Sputnik V,”
said Melik-Nubarian. “For that reason, both Sputnik V and AstraZeneca will be
easier to use in Armenia.”
Another Anti-Pashinian Mayor Prosecuted
• Susan Badalian
Armenia -- Meghri Mayor Mkhitar Zakarian speaks with journalists, September 21,
2019.
Armenian prosecutors have brought criminal charges against yet another local
government official who demanded Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation
following the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In a statement released on Thursday, the Office of the Prosecutor-General said
Mkhitar Zakarian, the mayor of the southeastern towns of Agarak and Meghri and
nearby villages making up a single administrative unit, has been charged with
abuse of power.
The accusation stems from the use of a small plot of agricultural land belonging
to the community which has been rented by an Agarak resident since 2007. The
statement said that the latter illegally rented the land to a mobile phone
company at a much higher price.
“[Zakarian] should have annulled the lease agreement because of its blatant
breach,” Sedrak Besalian, a prosecutor overseeing the investigation, told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Besalian also claimed that the mayor caused his community 3.7 million drams
($7,100) in financial damage.
Zakarian on Friday dismissed the accusation as “absurd.” “I can’t understand
what my alleged crime is all about,” he said. “They won’t give me any clear
explanation.”
Zakarian argued, in particular, that the lease agreement was signed before he
was elected mayor of Agarak and that he significantly improved its financial
terms for the local community after taking office in 2008.
The official was careful not to describe the accusation as politically
motivated. But he did suggest that prosecutors may have indicted him in order to
please the Armenian government.
Zakarian was among the heads of a dozen communities in Armenia’s southeastern
Syunik province who issued statements in early December condemning Pashinian’s
handling of the war with Azerbaijan and demanding his resignation. They also
accused Pashinian of putting Syunik’s security at grave risk with Armenian troop
withdrawals from adjacent areas southwest of Karabakh.
Later in December law-enforcement authorities leveled separate criminal charges
against two of those mayors running the towns of Goris and Kajaran. Armenian
courts refused to allow their arrest sought by investigators.
Both mayors rejected the accusations as politically motivated. They encouraged
hundreds of local residents who blocked a regional highway to disrupt
Pashinian’s visit to Syunik on December 21.
The prosecutors did not move to arrest Zakarian. The Meghri mayor told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service that he agreed to post bail to avoid pre-trial detention. He
said he is confident that he will be cleared of any wrongdoing.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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