Wednesday, May 8 2019 19:51

ArmInfo. The absence of official   materials in the National Security Service was discovered in the  summer of 2018. This was announced by Nikolai Pashinyan, Prime  Minister of the Republic, on May 8 in the parliament during the  government hour when Arman Babajanyan, a member of the Enlightened  Armenia Party, asked about the destruction of archival materials of  the National Security Service by the previous authorities.

According to Pashinyan, the learning process was started. Initially,  realizing all the scrupulousness of the issue, as the Prime Minister  noted, the government did not want to disclose the information. But  it soon became clear that many issues raised, including in Parliament  in connection with the March 1 case, are related to the content of  these documents. Then it was decided to make the information public.

As the head of government noted, at first it was difficult to believe  in the possibility of such an act. "For quite a long time,  investigations were carried out to uncover the incident. It would be  wrong to call the materials burned or lost. It is appropriate to say  that they are not in their places - possibly burned, possibly  destroyed," said the Prime Minister. It was with the aim of  clarifying all the circumstances that an official investigation was  appointed at the National Security Service. Nikol Pashinyan believes  that it is likely that a criminal case will be opened due to this  fact and will undergo a comprehensive investigation.  According to  the Prime Minister, today it is obvious that these materials concern  a serious range of internal processes. <They are associated with  personalities and events. In some cases, fragments of materials are  found, and based on the results of the checks, it turns out that  there is no original source. I cannot give more detailed information,  but the fact remains a fact, "he said. At the same time, as Pashinyan  pointed out, special checks were not carried out, the lack of  materials was revealed during the work of the investigating  authorities.

Recall that the head of the Armenian government at the press  conference on May 8 made a sensational statement regarding the  country's National Security Service. According to him, the former  government destroyed the materials stored in the National Security  Service before leaving the political arena. According to Pashinyan,  an official investigation is being conducted in the CIS in this case.  He didn't talk about what materials are being said: "I'm not a  lawyer, and I can't give a legal assessment of what happened, but I  think that this crime has an interdepartmental character," he  stressed. Continuing the topic in response to the question about the  possible holding of lustration in the country, Pashinyan spoke in  more detail: <Most of the archive of the National Security Service  has been destroyed, what kind of lustration can we talk about? What  do you mean by lustration? To make public the NSS agent list? I think  these people also suffered.