On May 7 Alexander Arzumanyan, former foreign affairs minister of Armenia and founder of the “Civic Disobedience” movement, was arrested not far from his house, was accused of money laundering and is still in the National Security Service department. Arzumanyan’s lawyer, Hovik Arsenyan, has filed a claim to the Secondary Court to revise the decision about arresting his client. The claim will be considered by the court today.
Yesterday Arsenyan met with Arzumanyan and says that his client does not have any health problems, the security officers relate to him normally, and he does “not think there are any problems”. As for the accusations, Arsenyan assures that they haven’t conducted any investigation in that matter so far. “I am sure they will not. The accusations are false and there is nothing to do there. They have made a criminal case, started legal proceedings, yet I believe will let him out soon,” assures Arzumanyan’s lawyer. The latter has not yet seen the actual facts and documents attached to the case. However, according to our information, the NSS brought a case against Azrumanyan based on testimony given by people in close relations with Arzumanyan. The same sources of information say that during the week before arresting Arzumanyan, the NSS called Arzumanyan’s friends, in all some 25 people that had been in active contact with him that month, to question them. It is very strange that none of those people have told Arzumanyan that he or she had been called to the NSS office for testimony. By the way, people started speaking about this case after the NSS searched the apartments of founder of “Civic Disobedience” movement, RA former FM Alexander Arzumanyan and RA former deputy defense minister Vahan Shirkhanyan on May 5. The investigation statement writes that the NSS has found out that in the period of April 24-26, Shirkhanyan and Arzumanyan met in Moscow and preliminary agreed “to legalize money received illegally by unknown people”, have hidden the true information (the source and transfer) about the money transferred for them to the accounts of 9 other front people in Conversebank, in the amount of $19,800, to each of their separate accounts on April 27. Later, the NSS made a statement reading that Arzumanyan and Shirkhanyan have come to an agreement with Russian citizen Levon Markos, who has been investigated since 2005 based on the public prosecutor’s office case # 62205103 for financial machinations, and had expectations in Armenia in the pre-election period, to transfer money with unknown origins to Armenia and legalize it. This is the factual evidence that served as grounds for the NSS to arrest Arzumanyan on May 7. As for Shirkhanyan, in that period he left for Moscow and then returned to Armenia. The mentioned statement of the NSS also writes, “in their apartments huge sums were found, which were in foreign currency”. However, it also informs about the money that they found in Arzumanyan’s apartment ($55,400). Arzumanyan refused to say anything about the origin and purposes of that money. This is all that we have for now.
By the way, they also searched the apartment of Gagik Khachatryan, who was also in Moscow (the author of “John Pazzolini” book). They confiscated Khachatryan’s computer processor. Several days later, Shirkhanyan organized a press conference, where he said that he had really received $60,000 from his relatives in Moscow for the purpose of paying for his daughter’s wedding and for renting office space for the “Shanghai club of Armenia” NGO. He also said that he had met neither with Arzumanyan nor with Levon Markos in Moscow. “When they searched my apartment they confiscated $28,000 and a computer, which they promised to return to me after finishing the investigation,” announced Shirkhanyan, adding that he thought he would be investigated later.
According to our information, before arresting Arzumanyan the NSS had questioned Shirkhanyan twice. It is said that Shirkhanyan said at the NSS office that he had given $60,000 that he had received from his relatives in Moscow to Arzumanyan and that he didn’t say anything about paying for his daughter’s wedding and any office space for the “Shanghai club of Armenia” NGO. Indeed, Shirkhanyan told us yesterday that he hadn’t said anything like that to the NSS, and he had said the same that he said later during the press conference, i.e. that he had received that money to pay for his daughter’s wedding and an office space. According to our information, Arzumanyan’s lawyer, Hovik Arsenyan, had not heard that either and says, “It is the first time that I have heard that. I have heard that he told them that he had received that money to pay for his daughter’s wedding.” Yesterday we asked Mr. Shirkhanyan whether it was true that he had been called to the NSS office for testimony several times and hadn’t told Arzumanyan about that. “No, I haven’t been called to the NSS office for testimony, but for discussions. Furthermore, I was called there for discussions the same day Arzumanyan was,” said Shirkhanyan.
Certainly, we will be able to find out whether the information of our sources, or Shirkhanyan’s, is true only after the court proceeds with the case and when it becomes possible to see the evidence attached to the case. Definitely there would not be a need to discuss the information of our sources and Shirkhanyan’s statements if our sources did not insist on the fact that Arzumanyan was arrested based on the testimony of a number of people in close relations with him, included Shirkhanyan. Our sources of information assure that these people helped the authorities to bring a case against former FM Arzumanyan. However, we wonder why the authorities needed to arrest Arzumanyan and keep him under arrest so long.