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Security Chief Vows To Detail Corruption Claims Against Kocharian


Armenia - Artur Vanetsian (L), director of the National Security Service (NSS), and Special Investigative Service chief Sasun Khachatrian at a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, 20 September 2018.
Armenia - Artur Vanetsian (L), director of the National Security Service (NSS), and Special Investigative Service chief Sasun Khachatrian at a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, 20 September 2018.

Artur Vanetsian, the head of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS), on Thursday pledged to elaborate “soon” on his recent allegations of corruption made against former President Robert Kocharian.

Vanetsian said on September 11 that the NSS has launched a “money laundering” investigation into what he described as hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets belonging to Kocharian and his family members. “We will publicize who owns what and how they acquired it,” Vanetsian told a news conference held amid a scandal sparked by his leaked phone calls with the head of another law-enforcement agency, the Special Investigative Service (SIS).

The SIS arrested Kocharian in late July on charges stemming from the deadly 2008 breakup of post-election opposition protests in Yerevan. Armenia’s Court of Appeals freed him from custody more than two weeks later.

Kocharian denies the accusations as politically motivated. He has portrayed Vanetsian’s leaked phone calls with the SIS chief Sasun Khachatrian as further proof that Prime Minster Nikol Pashinian, who played a key role in the 2008 protests, is waging a “vendetta” against him.

In that audio, Vanetsian can be heard telling Khachatrian that he ordered a district court judge to sanction the ex-president’s arrest.

The two security officials met the press on September 11 hours after the secret recordings were widely circulated by Armenian online media outlets. They not only defended the SIS’s investigation into the 2008 violence but also accused Kocharian of corruption. Vanetsian said that the latter will be questioned as part of the money laundering probe.

The NSS chief told reporters on Thursday that his agency is continuing to scrutinize the Kocharian family’s holdings and will publicize its findings “soon.” He refused to comment further.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for Kocharian, Aram Orbelian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that his client has not yet been charged or even questioned in connection with the corruption claims.

Kocharian, who governed Armenia from 1998-2008, has denied enriching himself or his family while in office. He has only admitted that his two sons are engaged in entrepreneurial activity. His elder son Sedrak reportedly filed a defamation suit against Vanetsian last week.

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