Armenia’s Court of Appeals on Friday ordered the release from pre-trial custody of former President Serzh Sarkisian’s former chief bodyguard prosecuted on corruption charges.
The officer, Vachagan Ghazarian, was detained on June 25 five days after police raided his apartment in Yerevan and found $1.1 million and 230,000 euros ($267,000) in cash there.
The National Security Service (NSS) said Ghazarian carried a further $120,000 and 436 million drams ($900,000) in a bag when he was caught outside a commercial bank in Yerevan. It said he claimed that he was going to give the money to its “real owner” but refused to identify that person.
According to an NSS statement, Ghazarian was also planning to withdraw 1.5 billion drams ($3.1 million) kept by him and his wife at another Armenian bank. He claimed that he “forgot” to add these sums to his official income declarations, added the statement.
Such declarations are mandatory for Armenia’s high-ranking state officials and their close relatives. Ghazarian was such an official until being sacked in late May as first deputy head of a security agency providing bodyguards to the country’s leaders.
Ghazarian was formally charged with illegally enriching himself and failing to disclose his assets to a state anti-corruption body. A district court in Yerevan allowed investigators to keep him under pre-trial arrest on June 28.
Ghazarian appealed against that ruling. The Court of Appeals ordered his release after he offered to post a 1 billion-dram ($2.1 million) bail.
Ghazarian, who headed Sarkisian’s security detail for more than two decades, is the first person in Armenia prosecuted on such charges. The ex-president has still not commented on the corruption case against one of his most trusted individuals.
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