The Anti-Corruption Court is currently reviewing the motion to detain Gyumri Mayor Vardan Ghukasyan. The mayor was transferred to the court from the Anti-Corruption Committee earlier today.

A large police presence has been deployed in the courtyard of the Anti-Corruption Court.

Earlier, the Anti-Corruption Committee informed NEWS.am that a motion had been filed to apply detention as a preventive measure against the Gyumri community head.

As previously reported by NEWS.am, early in the morning law enforcement officers entered Gyumri City Hall. Masked special forces blocked entry and exit from the building. Citizens gathered outside the city hall, where police detained several individuals.

During a special operation, masked officers detained Mayor Ghukasyan from the back entrance of the city hall and quickly transported him to Yerevan, to the Anti-Corruption Committee.

Later, the Committee announced that eight city hall employees, including Mayor Ghukasyan, had been arrested on charges of receiving and giving bribes. Among the detainees is also the city’s chief architect, Henrik Gasparyan. The Committee’s statement included a leaked audio recording of a conversation between the mayor and the chief architect.

It is worth recalling that on October 1, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated in parliament:
 “For six months now, Gyumri has been governed by a clan, whose leader—known to many as ‘Vardanik,’ or, according to the charges, the father of a man accused of stealing municipal paving stones—has gone so far as to publicly question Armenia’s sovereignty. Those who make statements against Armenia’s sovereignty must be expelled from political and public life,” Pashinyan said.