The top manager of companies belonging to Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) leader Gagik Tsarukyan was remanded in custody on Saturday after law-enforcement authorities brought fresh criminal charges against him.
–
A court in Yerevan allowed them to hold Sedrak Arustamyan, the chief executive of Tsarukyan’s Multi Group holding company, in detention for at least two months one day after his arrest.
–
Arustamyan was charged with bribery and money laundering. Investigators gave no details of the accusations denied by him.
–
Arustamyan’s lawyer, Hovik Sukiasyan, said the accusations stem from about $20 million which his client had lent to two other persons a decade ago.
–
“They [investigators] are telling him, ‘Since you did not earn interest [on the loans] it means that you paid bribes,” Sukiasyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. He insisted that Arustamyan had lent the hefty sums for purely commercial purposes and simply agreed afterwards to delay their repayment.
–
The lawyer did not deny or confirm media reports that the charges are connected with a criminal case against Gagik Khachatryan, a former finance minister who was arrested on corruption charges last August.
–
Arustamyan was already indicted earlier in two separate criminal inquiries conducted by the Investigative Committee.
–
The law-enforcement agency claimed last September that Tsarukyan’s right-hand man helped a Chinese construction company building a 56-kilometer highway in northwestern Armenia evade 240 million drams ($503,000) in taxes. It said the company also paid an Armenian firm owned by Arustamyan 117 million drams in fictitious consulting frees as part of the scam.
–
The Investigative Committee announced on April 8 that Arustamyan is also prosecuted for his refusal to stop the “illegal” construction by Multi Group of a luxury hotel in downtown Yerevan launched in early 2018.
–
Arustamyan rejects all accusations leveled against him.
–
Tsarukyan is one of Armenia’s richest men. His BHK opposition party controls the second largest number of seats in the Armenian parliament.
–
BHK representatives have so far reacted cautiously to the criminal cases against Tsarukyan’s close associate. The tycoon himself has not commented on them.
–
H/T Azatutyun
