Pashinyan about the reasons for Hayrapetov`s dismissal

ArmInfo. On November 3, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan during a live broadcast on his Facebook page on the topic "Conversation with a citizen.   Speculations on the Karabakh issue" touched upon the reasons for the  dismissal of  chief of the State Protection Service of the RA  National Security Service Grigori Hayrapetov.

To recall, Grigori Hayrapetov was relieved of his post on October 15  by decree of President Armen Sarkissian. He was the personal  bodyguard of three former presidents, as well as the current Prime  Minister Nikol Pashinyan. As noted by the media, Hayrapetov was  dismissed from service in connection with the opening of the case of  the murder of Poghos Poghosyan in the cafe "Aragast" on the night of  September 25, 2001. Allegedly, Hayrapetov was offered to testify in  this case, "remember" and say that then-President Robert Kocharyan  ordered to beat Poghosyan. However, Hayrapetov refused this, saying  that he could not give such evidence, since it does not correspond to  reality. In addition, a version was put forward that the dismissal  followed the statement by the former Secretary of the Security  Council of Karabakh, Vitaly Balasanyan, that Prime Minister Nikol  Pashinyan was pursuing the same policy on the Karabakh issue as the  first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan at one time. As Balasanyan said  at a press conference in Stepanakert, he knows what Nikol Pashinyan  and Ilham Aliyev talked about in an elevator on the sidelines of a  summit of CIS leaders in Dushanbe. "We have our sources. We know who  the Prime Minister met, we are aware of elevator diplomacy. But we  did not talk about all this for one simple reason. We waited for the  Prime Minister to present what he spoke with Aliyev," he said.

In connection with the resignation of Hayrapetov, as Pashinyan  pointed out during the live broadcast, a very interesting thesis was  put into circulation. "It was said that Pashinyan and Aliyev entered  into a conspiracy agreement in the elevator in Dushanbe and, since  Grigori Hayarapetov was present there, he was fired from his job. It  turns out that if there is a conspiracy, then I am so mediocre   conspirator that, firstly, I get involved in the conspiracy during  the first meeting with Aliyev, and I do this in the presence of  former bodyguard of Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, a person  whom I have known as head of my personal guard for only four months.  Moreover, he was Kocharian's bodyguard for 10 years and Sargsyan's  for a few  years, "the Prime Minister said. But even within the  framework of this logic, as Pashinyan emphasized, it was more  profitable for him not to dismiss Hayrapetov, but, on the contrary,  to keep his service, since it is military service that guarantees his  silence, "but as a free citizen he can say anything and anywhere."  Thus, as the Prime Minister noted, the "splendor and poverty" of the  anti-propaganda of the opponents of the authorities, on which many  spend millions, is demonstrated