The office of the former Armenian president Robert Kocharyan has responded to the media reports on the former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and attempts to link the arrest of an Armenian gang with the former and incumbent Armenian authorities.

Commenting on the media reports, Head of the office Victor Soghomonyan said: “There seems to be no point in refuting the downright lie in our mass media. A newspaper reports nonsense, regularly reverting to it. News agencies, including well-known ones, take it up and add the necessary ‘reminders.’ So the news becomes ‘immortal’ and defies refutation,” he said.

Soghomonyan called the journalists hyping up this version, as well as its proponents, “slow-witted persons,” and said: “First, Robert Kocharyan’s relations with Yuri Luzhkov were purely official. They had never had a join business program. Secondly, Armen Kazaryan, nicknamed Pzo, has never had anything in common with the Kocharyan family.”