Wednesday,
Armenian Parliament Panel Starts Probe On Leaked Phone Calls
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia -- Former Prosecutor-General Gevorg Kostanian speaks to RFE/RL in
Yerevan, 1 July 2018.
An ad hoc commission of the Armenian parliament officially began on Wednesday
an inquiry into leaked phone calls between two high-ranking law-enforcement
officials which have caused a political scandal in the country.
The heads of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) and Special
Investigative Service (SIS) apparently spoke in July shortly before former
President Robert Kocharian was arrested as part of an SIS-led investigation
into the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan. The conversations were
wiretapped and posted on the Internet earlier this month.
In particular, the NSS’s Artur Vanetsian told the SIS’s Sasun Khachatrian that
he ordered a judge to sanction Kocharian’s controversial arrest. Vanetsian also
urged the SIS not to arrest Yuri Khachaturov, the Armenian secretary general of
the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), warning of a
negative reaction from Russia. He noted that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
wants investigators to “lock up” Khachaturov.
Pashinian condemned the “illegal” wiretapping and denied putting pressure on
investigators. The scandal led Armenian prosecutors to order an investigation.
Kocharian, who was released from pre-trial custody in August, has portrayed the
audio as further proof that the criminal case against him is politically
motivated and directed by Pashinian. Top representatives of the former ruling
Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), the country’s largest parliamentary force,
have echoed these claims.
At the HHK’s initiative, the parliament decided to set up the special
multi-partisan commission on September 12. Lawmakers representing the
pro-Pashinian Yelk alliance objected to the decision. Still, Yelk agreed to
name two of the eleven members of the commission.
The panel held its first meeting on Wednesday. It was chaired by Gevorg
Kostanian, an HHK parliamentarian who served as Armenia’s prosecutor-general
from 2013-2016.
Kostanian said after the meeting that members of the commission will submit
next week proposals on which documents it must request from relevant state
bodies and who should be asked to testify at its further meetings. He also made
clear that it will focus on a possible “obstruction of justice” by the NSS and
the SIS chiefs.
“We have a special clause in the Criminal Code regarding obstruction of
justice,” Kostanian told reporters. “No criminal case has been opened under
that clause. Therefore, the commission is entitled to conducting a full
investigation within that framework.”
He said the panel will also look at whether the Office of the
Prosecutor-General has carried out“proper oversight” over the ongoing criminal
investigations into the 2008 violence and the legality of Kocharian’s arrest in
particular.
Kocharian Sees ‘Serious Support’ From Putin
Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Armenian President Robert
Kocharian walk at the Bocharov Ruchei summer retreat, 24Jan2007.
Robert Kocharian, Armenia’s former president facing criminal charges criticized
by Russia, has described a recent phone call from Russian President Vladimir
Putin as a show of “serious support” for him.
In an extensive newspaper interview published on Wednesday, Kocharian praised
Putin and claimed to have developed a warm rapport with the latter during his
1998-2008 rule.
“Our contacts have continued ever since the end of my presidency,” he told the
Russian daily “Kommersant.” “I did not publicize or try to somehow capitalize
on them.”
“I have huge respect for him and feel that his attitude towards me is similar,”
he said. “We respect each other and all the work which we had jointly done in
Russian-Armenian relations.”
Putin telephoned Kocharian to congratulate him on his 64th birthday anniversary
on August 31. The phone call came just over a month after Kocharian was
arrested on charges of illegally using the armed forces against opposition
protesters in Yerevan in February-March 2008.
An Armenian appeals court freed him from custody on August 13. The ex-president
denies the charges as politically motivated.
In late July, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denounced the prosecutions
of Kocharian, as well as two retired Armenian generals facing the same charges.
Lavrov said they run counter to the new Armenian leadership’s earlier pledges
not to “persecute its predecessors for political motives.”
“That phone call [from Putin] is serious support, but I have never showcased
these relations,” said Kocharian.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian downplayed the significance of the call before
visiting Moscow and meeting Putin on September 8. Pashinian declared after
those talks that Russian-Armenian relations are “brilliant.” He went on to
brand Kocharian as well as another former president, Serzh Sarkisian, as
“political corpses.”
Kocharian scoffed at that characterization, saying that in fact Pashinian is
scared of his political comeback which he announced immediately after his
release from jail. “I suppose that he is very worried about the results
achieved during my presidential tenure,” he said. “And a considerable part of
the society realizes that I am capable of doing that once again.”
Comparing Pashinian to the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Kocharian
again gave a grim assessment of the current Armenian government’s track record.
“It is chaotic, knows nothing about the economy and lacks a clear plan of
actions,” he said.
The ex-president specifically accused Pashinian’s cabinet of scaring away local
and foreign investors. “Nobody knows what is on the minds of the new government
members,” he claimed. “This means uncertainty and money runs away from
uncertainty. Just the opposite was the case during my time [in office.]”
Pashinian, his loyalists and other critics say that Kocharian systematically
stifled dissent, tolerated government corruption, sponsored economic
monopolies, and rigged elections when he ran the country from 1998-2008.
Announcing his comeback on August 16, Kocharian denied that corruption was
widespread at the time. He argued that the Armenian economy grew fivefold and
living standards improved considerably in the ten-year period. He also
dismissed long-standing claims that he made a huge personal fortune while in
office, challenging the current authorities to prove his alleged enrichment.
U.S. Seeks Extradition Of Turkish American Lobbyist Arrested In Armenia
Armenia - Turkish American activist Kemal Oksuz is questioned by Armenian
police, 29 August 2018.
The United States has formally asked Armenia to extradite the former head of a
Turkish American lobbying group who was arrested in Yerevan on August 29.
The Armenian police detained Kemal (Kevin) Oksuz a week after U.S.
law-enforcement authorities issued an international arrest warrant for him. A
Yerevan court was quick to allow the police to keep the Turkish-born man in
custody for at least one month.
Oksuz used to run the Texas-based Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians
as well as the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan. The two groups came under
scrutiny after organizing in 2013 an all-expenses-paid visit to Azerbaijan by
10 members and 32 staffers of the U.S. Congress.
The Washington Post reported in 2015 that the trip was secretly funded by
Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company SOCAR in violation of U.S. congressional
rules. The paper said that SOCAR spent $750,000 for that purpose.
The Ethics Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives launched an inquiry
into the secret funding around that time. Oksuz reportedly refused to testify
in the probe.
An Armenian police statement issued on August 30 revealed that Oksuz
subsequently moved to Armenia and set up a company there last year. He is now
wanted in the U.S. for lying to the Ethics Committee about foreign funding
received by his organizations, according to the statement.
A spokeswoman for Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General, Arevik
Khachatrian, told the Armenpress news agency on Wednesday that it has received
a formal extradition request from U.S. law-enforcement authorities. She did not
say when the Armenian side will respond to it.
Under Armenian law, final decisions on extraditing foreign nationals living in
the country have to be made by the Justice Ministry. They can be challenged in
court.
Armenpress also reported that the police suspect Oksuz’s Armenian-registered
company called the Sena Group oftax evasion. If charged, he will risk heavy
fines or up to five years’ imprisonment.
It remains unclear why Oksuz decided to relocate to Armenia, a country that has
strained relations with both Turkey and Azerbaijan. Just like other Turkish
American activists, he had lobbied the U.S. Congress against recognizing the
1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey.
Reporting on Oksuz’s arrest, the pro-government Turkish newspaper “Sabah”
referred to him as a “high-ranking” loyalist of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based
Turkish cleric facing coup charges in Turkey. The paper also called his
Turquoise Council of Americans a “Gulenist umbrella organization.”
Thousands of Gulen supporters have been jailed in Turkey since a failed 2016
coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Western Watchdog Condemns Police Raid On Armenian Media Outlet
FRANCE -- Press releases are pictured during a press conference of Reporters
Without Borders (RSF) to present the its World Press Freedom Index for 2018, in
Paris, April 25, 2018
The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the
Armenian police for searching the offices of a news website as part of a
criminal investigation into leaked phone calls between two top law-enforcement
officials.
“The search of Yerevan.Today’s premises and the seizure of its equipment
constitute grave violations of the principle of the protection of journalists’
sources, which is guaranteed by Armenian legislation and the European Court of
Human Rights,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central
Asia desk.
“We regret that the police did not seek a less intrusive and more proportionate
way to achieve their legitimate goal,” he added in a statement released late on
Tuesday.
Officers of a special police unit and the Investigative Committee confiscated
several computer hard disks when they raided the headquarters of the
Yerevan.Today online publication on Monday.
The seven-four search stems from a wiretapping scandal that rocked the Armenian
political scene last week. Unknown individuals posted on the Internet the audio
of two recent phone calls between the heads of two other Armenian
law-enforcement bodies. The latter discussed an ongoing inquiry into the 2008
post-election violence in Yerevan.
The Investigative Committee said law-enforcement officers searched this and
five other locations in a bid to ascertain “the method of the secret recording
and dissemination” of the sensitive conversations. It claimed that
Yerevan.Today posted the scandalous audio on its website earlier than other
Armenian media outlets.
The website editor, Sevak Hakobian, strongly denied that, calling the police
actions “irresponsible.” He said that the search all but “paralyzed”
Yerevan.Today’s activities.
Press Review
“Zhoghovurd” says that recriminations traded by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
and his de facto coalition partners in the ongoing mayoral race in Yerevan are
calling into question his plans to force snap parliamentary elections by next
June. The paper goes as far as to claim that Pashinian’s power-sharing deal
with them is “on the brink of collapse.”
“Haykakan Zhamanak” likewise notes that at least two parties allied to
Pashinian are now threatening to walk away from political deals reached with
him in May. The Pashinian-linked paper says that the premier and his political
team themselves can now scrap those deals and push for the dissolution of the
Armenian parliament already this year. “Pashinian’s team might not even wait
for amendments to the Electoral Code and go for fresh elections under the
existing code,” it says, adding that they would be certain to win the elections
in any case.
“Our society is so isolated from the outside world that we … are surprised with
the most elementary realities,” editorializes “Hraparak.” For instance, the
paper says, many in Armenia do not know that sensitive phone conversations
between senior officials can also be wiretapped and publicized in many other
countries. “The famous WikiLeaks scandal is enough to understand that even
[documents kept in] the Pentagon and State Department archives can be leaked
and can change geopolitical realities as a result,” it says.
“Zhamanak” comments on the latest increase in ceasefire violations in the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. “Azerbaijan will never dare to start a
large-scale war without being certain that there are favorable conditions for
doing that as a result of Armenian foreign policy failures or Armenia’s
international isolation,” writes the paper. “In this regard we find it
extremely important to overcome the existing crisis in Russian-Armenian
relations which primarily benefits Azerbaijan … On the other hand, Armenia’s
foreign policy should get out of the trap of solely Russian trajectory and
become truly diversified and proactive.”
(Tigran Avetisian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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