The legal team of Republic of Armenia (RA) former Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan, who is currently under arrest, have issued a statement. It reads as follows:

The other day we learned that in the criminal case against Davit Tonoyan, the NSS [(National Security Service)] detained Artyom Hambaryan, the head of the Aviation Technical Property Service of the Aviation Department of the RA MOD, and Vladimir Babayan, the chief engineer of the Aviation Department, who had been questioned as witnesses in the same case.

These two high-ranking officers had given testimony—in the criminal case—that did not contradict the other materials of the case, refuting the charge against Davit Tonoyan. The defense also has other information about the "reasons" for detaining the two mentioned persons, which we do not consider expedient to make public at the moment.

This practice deepens the existing serious concerns on the part of the defense to conduct the investigation in any way, including those prohibited by law, in accordance with the NSS's preferred guidelines, to detain Davit Tonoyan for as long as possible, and to create an illusion of the already collapsed case being well-founded.

At the same time, we consider it necessary to refer to the statement issued by the NSS that some of the missiles acquired some time after delivery had not fired and were taken off the balance sheet, and the rest were allegedly not used at all, including during the 44-day [Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)] war that began on September 27, 2020.

In this regard, it should be noted that this information is mostly manipulative and misleading, as it was refuted by the data already obtained in the same criminal case; in particular, according to the materials of the criminal case, some of these missiles were used not only during the 2020 war, but also before that, during the training exercises, whereas no date were obtained in the case on their being low quality, non-performance of combat tasks.

We also consider it appropriate to recall the recent statement by the RA Prime Minister in the National Assembly that this criminal case has been filed by the National Security Service under the Prime Minister, and all international reports record that such cases cannot be solved and go towards solving without the existence of political will.

We propose and urge the RA Prime Minister and his subordinate structure to truly manifest political will in order to ensure an objective investigation of the case, to reveal the truth about the case. Only after ensuring that objectivity will we reflect on the clarification of the deadlines for the usefulness, production, and storage of ammunition to the investigative body with the support of an independent expert, as well as on the concept of "market price."