Category: 2022

 13:15,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 12, ARMENPRESS. Former national police chief Lt. General Vladimir Gasparyan faces multiple criminal charges in a corruption case. The Anti-Corruption Committee released the indictment on January 12.

Gasparyan is accused in laundering more than 2 billion drams over the course of 18 years.

From 1997 to 2010, Gasparyan was the Chief of Military Police. He then served as Deputy Minister of Defense for a year. From 2011 to 2018 he was Chief of Police.

According to the indictment, Lt. General Gasparyan awarded no-show jobs to his wife and daughter at the Military Police and Police in between 2000-2018, with damages totaling more than 45,000,000 drams.

Lt. General Gasparyan is accused in abuse of power, falsifications and other corruption-related crimes, which led him to illicitly obtaining “expensive homes and cars” the value of which significantly exceed his family’s legal income. He then laundered the assets through accomplices. The investigation revealed that Gasparyan laundered a total of 2,116,040,804 drams of assets.

The indictment was sent to the Supervising Prosecutor for approval and forwarding to court.

 13:28,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 12, ARMENPRESS. Bangladesh has formally conveyed to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) its intent to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) as the country prepares for a socioeconomic status change, Fibre2Fashion reports.

The proposal was made recently amid a cue from the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), which could seek concurrence of its member-states—Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.

These five Eastern European countries have over $1.5 billion annual bilateral trade with Bangladesh, which, Bangladesh commerce ministry officials think, can rise manifold if an FTA is inked.

Bangladesh and the EEC signed a memorandum of cooperation in Moscow in May 2019 to take forward bilateral trade. Later, a working group was formed to enhance trade and economic cooperation in 19 sectors.

The first meeting of the working group was held in November last in Moscow. In the meeting, Bangladesh expressed interest in concluding an FTA with the EAEU and the EEC suggested sending a formal proposal in this regard, according to Bangla media reports.

In fiscal 2019-20, Bangladesh exported goods worth $398 million to EAEU member states while imports from there were worth $1.106 billion.

 13:32,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 12, ARMENPRESS. One of the key objectives of the Armenian peacekeeping unit in Almaty, Kazakhstan, was preventing the rampaging terrorists from poisoning the local water supply, the unit’s commander Major Hayrapet Mkrtchyan told journalists, reports TASS.

“One of the main tasks at the Druzhba water supply facility was the prevention of the water [supply] from being poisoned”, he stated.

According to the commander, the water supply facility is a strategic object and quite possibly it could have been targeted for contamination by the terrorists.

In Almaty, in addition to the Druzhba waterworks, the Armenian peacekeepers are also guarding one of the largest bread factories.

According to the January 6, 2022 decision by the CSTO Collective Security Council, the bloc's collective peacekeeping forces were deployed to Kazakhstan for a limited time period in order to stabilize and normalize the situation. The contingent includes the armed forces of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.