The hearing of the appeal on the custody case of ex-deputy PM Armen Gevorgyan will resume on January 17.

The Criminal Court of Appeal hearing was adjourned as his attorney has not yet received the copy of the appeal which the attorney general’s office of Armenia has filed.

Talking to reporters, Gevorgyan who faces charges of taking a very large bribe, committing large-scale money laundering, and aiding in breaching Armenia’s constitutional order, said he believes the charges to be ungrounded.

Ethnic Armenian Andronik Grigoryan, who is among the other seamen who were kidnapped in the Gulf of Guinea, is a Russian citizen.

At present, however, there is no new information on these kidnapped mariners.

Six Russian seafarers, among them one ethnic Armenian, were captured by pirates in Benin’s territorial waters in the Gulf of Guinea, on January 2.

Spanish police have arrested 15 people in an investigation into tennis match-fixing by an Armenian criminal gang.

The suspects bribed professional players to guarantee predetermined results and used the identities of thousands of citizens to bet on the pre-arranged games. A criminal group of Armenian individuals used a professional tennis player, who acted as the link between the gang and the rest of the criminal group.

According to Europol, 83 suspects were arrested, 28 of them are professional players.

A death from swine flu has been recorded in Armenia, Artavazd Vanyan, director of the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters on Friday.

According to him, 693 people are being treated for the flu in hospitals. H1N1 virus is mainly spread in Armenia, he added.

Vanyan said there is no need to close schools and kindergartens in Armenia amid the flu as schools are monitored closely.