Hrant Ananyan, the attorney of Yerkrapah (Defender of the Land) Volunteer Union Chairman and National Assembly “Republican Party of Armenia” Faction MP, General Manvel Grigoryan, has decided to no longer defend his client.

Ananyan noted that he had not been informed about some other circumstances in the criminal case that has been launched against Grigoryan.

“Under present conditions, I do not find it appropriate to any longer continue providing legal assistance to M. Grigoryan,” he wrote, in particular, on Facebook. “And on my recommendation, with M. Grigoryan’s consent (which is mandatory by law), the investigative body a while ago recorded that fact, and I have stopped being his [legal] defender.”

As reported earlier, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Sunday stated on livestream that General Manvel Grigoryan was suspected not solely of illegal possession of weapons and ammunition, but also of appropriating the goods which schoolchildren had sent for military servicemen as assistance. Subsequently, the National Security Service disseminated a statement and footage to this effect.

Grigoryan was arrested a day earlier, but within the framework of the criminal case that was filed solely into the finding of illegal weapons and ammunition in his summer residence. 

Later on Sunday, Manvel Grigoryan’s son, Karen Grigoryan, resigned from his office as Mayor of Vagharshapat (Etchmiadzin) city.