Two days after Tsarukian’s arrest promised by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, the authorities unilaterally rescinded on July 8 a long-term lease agreement on land in the city center occupied by the Multi Wellness center. They went on to seize the property itself. Armenia’s State Committee for Real Estate Cadaster formally transferred its ownership to the municipality on July 14. The government agency gave no reason for the extraordinary decision.

The Multi Wellness management wants the court to annul both decisions described by it as illegal. Mayor Tigran Avinian’s office has so far declined to present legal grounds for the unprecedented asset confiscation. Avinian, who is a senior member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, has personally announced the seizure on social media.

Multi Wellness was among dozens of Tsarukian-owned firms raided and effectively shut down by law-enforcement officers on July 6. Later in July, courts allowed the Armenian government to take over the largest of them — a cement plant and a brandy distillery — pending verdicts on prosecutors’ demand to confiscate Tsarukian’s assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Pashinian pledged to nationalize the cement plant located in the southern town of Ararat when he campaigned for the June 7 parliamentary elections in which Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) was one of the main opposition contenders. He has since repeatedly pledged to imprison and “dispossess” Tsarukian as well as the leaders of two other key opposition groups.

Tsarukian is accused of defrauding Iranian business partners. He strongly denies the accusations. The current executive director and a former chairman of his Multi Group holding company were arrested as part of the same criminal case on Wednesday.

Several other business executives working for the BHK leader were arrested earlier. They include the director of the Yerevan-based Ararat Brandy-Wine-Vodka Factory, who is facing tax evasion charges also levelled against Tsarukian.