Author: Liana Toganian

                                        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
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