YEREVAN. – Parliamentary opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) leader, MP, and business tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan was questioned at the National Security Service (NSS) Investigation Department Sunday as part of a criminal case against former State Revenue Committee (SRC) chairman Gagik Khachatryan and several others. Tsarukyan's lawyer Emin Khachatryan stated about this in a conversation with Armenian News-NEWS.am on Monday.

"He was not been questioned in any of those three criminal cases that are launched [involving him]. Mr. Tsarukyan was questioned in the criminal case initiated against SRC ex-chairman Gagik Khachatryan, [businessman] Sedrak Arustamyan, and many others," Khachatryan said, in particular.

"Gagik Tsarukyan was questioned for the first time within the framework of that criminal case. I believe that there could be no contradictions in the testimonies, as Mr. Tsarukyan did not have valuable information for the investigation."

Referring to the statement by the members of the majority My Step faction in parliament that Tsarukyan had been aware of the mentioned criminal cases for a long time, the lawyer said. "Gagik Tsarukyan was not aware of the specific criminal cases. (…). Gagik Tsarukyan found out about the existence of these criminal cases yesterday—early in the morning the NSS employees visited his residence address and presented search warrants.”

It is noteworthy that, according to the lawyer, the criminal case on vote buying was initiated back in February. "The criminal case on casinos was initiated on June 13, 2020; the criminal case on electoral fraud was initiated on February 1, 2020," he said

 

Asked what confiscated from Tsarukyan's mansion as a result of the search, the lawyer said: "In our opinion, there were no documents of any significance for the investigation, which they took. They took general notes about their business activities; they took his little son's computer. (...). For example, they took a USB flash drive with videos of family events.”

Touching upon the issue of stripping Gagik Tsarukyan of his parliamentary immunity, Emin Khachatryan said: "The information about the prosecutor's going to the National Assembly and submitting a [respective] petition is contradictory at the moment. I am not convinced that this is how things will turn out. Even if he goes, I can say that there is no legal basis to strip Mr. Tsarukyan of his [parliamentary] immunity. First of all, these initiated criminal cases are groundless because Gagik Tsarukyan has nothing to do with these criminal cases. ”

To note, the NSS investigators on Sunday searched Gagik Tsarukyan's mansion and the enterprises belonging to him.

Then, the NSS issued statements on three criminal cases involving the PAP leader.

Accordingly, the first of these criminal cases is about illegalities at Casino Shangri La owned by Gagik Tsarukyan. According to the NSS statement, this gaming hall operated without a license, which caused more than 29 billion drams in damage to the state.

The second statement was about vote buying during the 2017 parliamentary election.

And while Tsarukyan was still being questioned, the NSS disseminated a statement on a third criminal case. Accordingly, the officials of Arinj community—where Gagik Tsarukyan resides—of Kotayk Province had legalized the illegal structures on a 7.5-hectare agricultural land that was unlawfully leased, and then had illegally alienated this land to "New" LLC belonging to Tsarukyan. And as a result of this illegality, about 370 million drams were not transferred to Arinj's budget.