ArmInfo.The political forces of Armenia either do not want to interfere in the course of the case on charges of ex-Defense Minister of Artsakh Samvel Babayan in the illegal importation of the Igla missile, or consider it to be exclusively political.
In particular, the leader of the "Armenian National Movement" and the candidate for deputy from the "Tsarukyan" bloc Ararat Zurabyan considered such loud arrests in the pre-electoral period to be strange. However, in his opinion, the NSS's statements that Babayan ordered the import of an anti-aircraft missile system are not serious, since he does not understand how he could use it. The politician also does not see any connection of this arrest with the program proposed by the first president of Armenia Levon Ter- Petrosyan for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict through territorial concessions.
In his turn, the supporter of the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian bloc Azat Arshakyan stated that Babayan was eliminated, as the authorities intend to implement the Ter-Petrosyan plan and cede the territories. "The authorities know how cruel he is in this matter, and have eliminated him", he stressed.
Member of the bloc "Free Democrats" Stepan Safaryan noted that before all recent elections there were loud arrests and detentions. "It's strange not only this, but also the fact that an information background was provided before the detention, and some media informed about it beforehand," the politician stressed, without giving any other estimates.
The representative of the "Elk" bloc, Alen Simonyan, did not want to comment on this matter anyway, since he did not consider it right to politicize this issue.
Babayan's arrest was carried out in the framework of the case of illegal importation of the Igla MANPADS from Georgia to Armenia. The press service of the National Security Service stated that within the framework of this case, 3 people were arrested and Babayan. As a result of operational-search activities, reliable data was obtained that persons engaged in the delivery and acquisition of components of the anti-aircraft missile system acted at the behest and order of Babayan. Bloc Oganyan-Raffi-Oskanian, whose supporter he is, called the given arrest a political persecution and called on international organizations, diplomatic missions to keep this pre-election incident at the center of attention.