YEREVAN. – The criminal case that was opened on the wiretapping and subsequent publication of a telephone conversation between Artur Vanetsyan, former director of the National Security Service (NSS), and Sasun Khachatryan, head of the Special Investigation Service (SIS), has been dropped. Rima Yeganyan, head of the information and public relations department of the Investigative Committee of Armenia, said this in response to a respective query from Armenian News-NEWS.am.

She said the proceedings of this criminal case on charges on going beyond official powers were terminated on the grounds of lack of corpus delicti.

On September 11, 2018, information was published in the electronic press about the wiretapping of a telephone conversation between the then NSS director and the head of the SIS, which had referred to a recording posted on YouTube. In the recording of this wiretapped telephone conversation, Vanetsyan and Khachatryan were discussing the criminal case on the tragic events that had occurred in the capital Yerevan on March 1, 2008.

As for the criminal case that has been filed into the illegal recording of telephone conversations between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, then NSS director Vanetsyan, and SIS chief Khachatryan and disseminating them on the Internet, the respective investigation continues. All three were recognized as injured parties in this case and questioned.