ArmInfo. Prosecutor General Arthur Davtyan submitted two motions to the National Assembly of Armenia regarding the launch of criminal prosecution of the leader of the Prosperous Armenia party and the head of its parliamentary faction, Gagik Tsarukyan, and imprisonment.
The speaker of the Armenian parliament Ararat Mirzoyan stated this on June 15 in a conversation with reporters after a meeting of the Council of the National Assembly.
"This issue will be discussed tomorrow at the next parliamentary meeting," he stressed. At the request of journalists to express their attitude to the accusations made by members of the Prosperous Armenia party about the politicization of this persecution, Mirzoyan assured that the case was exclusively in the legal field. "It is obvious that the criminal case was instituted long ago, there can be no question of any political persecution - the issue is in the exclusively legal plane," Mirzoyan concluded.
As ArmInfo previously reported, on the eve of the National Security Service ransacked the mansion of the oligarch and leader of the Prosperous Armenia party Gagik Tsarukyan, after which he was summoned to the SNB for questioning. Law enforcement authorities suspect him of illegal entrepreneurial activity in the field of gambling, as a result of which the state was damaged in the amount of $ 60 million, as well as in bribery of voters in 2017 and illegal appropriation of land in the village of Arinj, Kotayk region.
After the interrogation, the head of the party stated that he continued to consider the criminal case against him a political persecution, and that he had no connection with the management of the companies attributed to him. Tsarukyan was interrogated for more than 9 hours. At this time, hundreds of supporters of Tsarukyan and his party members gathered at the NSS. According to the RA police, according to the situation at 10 pm on June 14, the RA Police detained 252 protesters who came to support the leader of the Prosperous Armenia party Gagik Tsarukyan. After drawing up the protocols, the detainees were released. Concerning some citizens, a criminal case has been instituted on the fact of part 1 of article 225.1 (organization of mass riots accompanied by violence). The maximum sanction under this article provides for a two-month arrest. The police recalled that during the state of emergency declared because of the coronavirus from March 16 to July 13, mass meetings were banned.