The Investigative Committee said more than 70 locations were raided simultaneously as part of over a dozen criminal cases opened by it. The committee did not immediately report any details of those cases.
Investigators, among them masked officers of the National Security Service (NSS) carrying assault rifles, began searching Tsarukian’s hilltop mansion just north of Yerevan early in the morning. They for hours did not allow his lawyers to be present at the search.
Also raided were companies making up Tsarukian’s Multi Group conglomerate. They included Armenia’s largest cement plant, a major brandy distillery, as well as sports and entertainment facilities. Thousands of their workers were reportedly sent home as a result. Those companies were audited by tax officials last month.
Artyom Poghosian, the acting director of the cement plant located in the southern town of Ararat, said that law-enforcement officers sealed off its office building despite not confiscating anything during the search.
“They have paralyzed the work of the plant employing more than 1,000 people,” he told Tsarukian’s Kentron TV channel.
Pashinian pledged to nationalize the plant when he campaigned for the June 7 parliamentary elections in which Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) was one of the main opposition contenders. He has since repeatedly pledged to imprison and “dispossess” Tsarukian as well as the leaders of two other key opposition groups.
Tsarukian was charged with “larges-scale” tax evasion and banned from leaving the country on June 9 just as the BHK accused the Central Election Commission (CEC) of illegally barring it from the new Armenian parliament. Two weeks later, prosecutors asked the CEC for permission to bring another criminal charge against the tycoon. They have still not disclosed it.
Tsarukian’s spokeswoman, Iveta Tonoyan condemned the latest raids as politically motivated. She said security forces are acting on Pashinian’s illegal orders.
The apparently demonstrative searches coincided with Pashinian’s visit to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg where he attended an economic forum and also met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Russia’s de facto ban on agricultural imports from Armenia imposed in the run-up to the elections was expected to be a key focus of the talks.
Tsarukian blamed Pashinian for the sanctions during the election campaign, saying that they are the result of Yerevan’s pro-Western foreign policy seen by the BHK and other opposition forces as reckless. Moscow has criticized the ensuing crackdown on the tycoon known for his pro-Russian views.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president heading the ruling United Russia party, deplored on June 28 the new criminal proceedings launched against him. Medvedev they herald a “new round of repression against opposition representatives at odds with the ruling elite.”