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Ex-General’s Wife Arrested


Armenia - Nazik Amirian, the wife of retired General Manvel Grigorian, at a news conference in Yerevan, 18 July 2014.
Armenia - Nazik Amirian, the wife of retired General Manvel Grigorian, at a news conference in Yerevan, 18 July 2014.

The wife of Manvel Grigorian, a retired army general prosecuted on corruption charges, was detained late on Wednesday two days after an Armenian law-enforcement body issued an arrest warrant for her.

The Special Investigative Service (SIS) said Nazik Amirian is suspected of helping her husband acquire “large quantities” of weapons and ammunition and keep them at his villas located in and around the town of Echmiadzin.

Grigorian was arrested when security forces raided those properties on June 16. They found many weapons, ammunition, medication and field rations for soldiers provided by the Armenian Defense Ministry. They also discovered canned food and several vehicles donated by Armenians at one of Grigorian’s mansions.

The Armenian parliament last week allowed investigators to prosecute and keep Grigorian in pre-trial detention on charges of illegal arms possession and embezzlement. Grigorian, who has been a parliament deputy since 2012, denies the accusations.

The SIS, which is conducting the high-profile inquiry, decided on Monday to also arrest Amirian. Explaining the decision, it said that two days after the ex-general’s arrest police impounded two trucks laden with canned meat also meant for Armenian military personnel.

According to an SIS statement, the truck drivers told police officials that Amirian instructed them on June 16 to urgently transport the food from the Yerevan headquarters of the Yerkrapah Union of Karabakh war veterans to other locations. General Grigorian has headed Yerkrapah for nearly two decades.

The law-enforcement body made no mention of the confiscated food rations when it announced Amirian’s arrest. It said she turned herself in to the “investigating body.”

Earlier on Wednesday, the Armenpress news agency quoted a spokesman for the Armenian police service as saying that they are still taking “measures” to track down and detain Grigorian’s wife.

Amirian is the stepmother of Karen Grigorian, who resigned as mayor of Echmiadzin the day after his father’s arrest. He was charged last Friday with helping the ex-general misappropriate three vans that were donated to the military by an Armenian Diaspora organization in Russia in 2016.

The SIS did not arrest Grigorian Jr. and instead had him sign a pledge not to leave the country until the inquiry is over.

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