“The statement voiced by the Armenian National Congress (ANC) saying that the Armenian authorities have close ties with criminal boss Armen Ghazaryan are untrue, Secretary of the Republican parliamentary group Eduard Sharmazanov told NEWS.am. According to him, it is ANC’s regular attempt to spread misinformation at its rallies. Misinformation is immediately spread by the media controlled by the opposition as well, he added. “In fact Pzo was prospering in Armenia in 1990s when the Armenian National Movement (ANM) headed by Levon Ter-Petrosyan was ruling the country. Pzo left the country and moved to U.S. after ANM’s positions were weakened,” he said. The RPA also responded to the ANM accusation, according to which during the presidential elections of 2008 Pzo coordinated the work of a number of criminal elements in the campaign against Ter-Petrosyan. “The RA government and specifically RA President Serzh Sargsyan have never had such an issue. I don’t have any serious attitude to these statements because those have nothing in common with the reality,” said Sharmazanov. And the deputy-chair of the RPA Razmik Zohrabyan told the Radio Liberty, “Serzh Sargsyan is not the person to have any links with people like Pzo. We are not connected with the criminal world. We are arresting them and give them appropriate punishment.” Let us remember that in the last rally of the ANC it was announced that Pzo participated in the wedding of the son of Kocharyan together with the second President Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan. Yesterday the second Armenian President Robert Kocharyan’s office denied allegations made by opposition, regarding connections with Armen Ghazaryan “Pzo” – arrested last week in U.S. for medical fraud charges– with the former president. “Naturally I deny such allegations, and its not the first time I have been denying”, chief of staff Soghomonyan told to RFL. He also denied that Armen Ghazaryan attended wedding ceremony of Robert Kocharyan’s son, Sedrak Kocharyan: “I have even received photos to identify, but it was a completely different person in the photos,” said the former president’s chief of staff. Let us remember that as reported earlier, Armenian criminals and their associates used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat Medicare out of $163 million, the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program’s history. The operation was under the protection of an Armenian crime boss Armen Ghazaryan, nicknamed Pzo. He was also among the first arrestees in Los Angeles.
