ArmInfo. Today, the Prosecutor General sent a petition to the National Assembly to include on the agenda the issue of the arrest of the former Minister of Nature Protection, MP Aram Harutyunyan. On December 3 at the time of the election campaign, said the Acting Prime Minister of Armenia, head of the My Step bloc Nikol Pashinyan in Armavir.
The Acting Prime Minister noted that Aram Harutyunyan is suspected of receiving a bribe of $ 14 million. "This is further evidence that we will be consistent in the fight against corruption. The signal for this crime came several months ago. However, since most of the transactions were made through foreign banks, we could not properly investigate this until we received banks officially responded to our request, "Pashinyan said, stating that due to such circumstances, the investigation of some corruption cases is sometimes delayed.
Pashinyan noted that Armenia does not officially authorized structures known about the outcome of the case, but could not do anything until then have not yet received an official response. "As you know, criminal cases were brought against former officials, who were later released, and there was talk that this was a show. But I want to note that we will never make deals behind the backs of our people. We can fix that today, the judicial system operates independently of the government, but at the same time we have no guarantees that the same judicial system operates independently of former officials. Logically, they should not have such leverage, but at the same time we know that 90% of officials in the region were appointed to other departments of the country during the previous government. And we have repeatedly stated that we would not arrange a cadre genocide, and did not dismiss most of the same ministries. However, lately there have been many problems that we intend to solve by numerous reforms, "said Pashinyan.
The Acting Prime Minister also said that now there is concern that the RPA MPs may not come to the parliament tomorrow and not provide a quorum, or simply do not vote in favor of Harutyunyan's arrest. "I hope that all MPs will not hinder the fight against corruption, but in the most extreme case, the new parliament will address this issue," Pashinyan stressed.
The Acting Prime Minister also noted that he hopes that it will soon be established how much money was stolen and should be returned to the state.
To recall, in October of this year, speaking in Parliament, Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced the imminent arrest of one of the deputies as part of a large-scale investigation into the corruption case. However, he stressed, that requires "one piece of paper", which the investigation can not get for several months. The name of the MP Pashinyan did not disclose at the same time, saying only that this case leads to many other criminal plots. A few days later, at a press conference, entrepreneur Silva Hambartsumyan stated that it was certainly about Aram Harutyunyan. She admitted that she bribed the former minister in the amount of $ 14 million for obtaining a license to operate the mines.