Manvel Grigorian, a retired army general arrested recently on corruption charges, has been hospitalized to undergo medical tests ordered by an Armenian law-enforcement agency.
Grigorian was transferred from a detention center in downtown Yerevan to the endocrinology department of the Armenia Medical Center late on Wednesday. Officials at the civilian hospital refused on Thursday to comment on his reportedly poor health condition.
The Special Investigative Service (SIS) told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that it wants to ascertain that condition.
Grigorian was arrested when security forces raided his properties in and around the town of Echmiadzin 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. A widely publicized official video of the raids caused shock and indignation in the country.
The Armenian parliament, of which Grigorian is a member, was quick to allow investigators to prosecute and keep him in pre-trial detention on charges of illegal arms possession and embezzlement. The once powerful general denies the accusations.
Grigorian’s lawyers have repeatedly demanded his release from pre-trial custody, saying that the 61-year-old is suffering from a number of serious illnesses. They were allowed to visit him in the hospital on Thursday morning.
One of the lawyers, Levon Baghdasarian, claimed that his client’s condition has worsened in the last few days. “He has trouble talking and breathing,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
Baghdasarian complained that Grigorian was hospitalized to undergo tests, rather than receive what he described as badly needed receive medical aid. His treatment by the authorities amounts to “torture,” charged the lawyer.
Grigorian served as Armenia’s deputy defense minister from 2000-2008. Until his arrest he was also the chairman of the Yerkrapah Union of Karabakh war veterans, an organization which was particularly influential in the 1990s and the early 2000s. He was reelected to the parliament last year on the ticket of then President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party.
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