The law-enforcement agency confirmed that its officers detained the businessman, Bagrat Darbinian, and the city’s chief architect, Suren Abovian, after searching their offices. It refused to give any details of the corruption investigation.
Also arrested were officials from the Armenian government’s Urban Development Committee. Sources told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that they and Abovian are suspected of illegally issuing construction permits.
Darbinian’s Gloria factory had some 3,000 workers as of 2022, making it Vanadzor’s single largest employer.
The alleged abuses investigated by the Anti-Corruption were committed after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian appointed a local figure notorious for violent conduct, Arkadi Peleshian, as Vanadzor’s acting mayor in May 2022.
Peleshian’s appointment came five months after an opposition bloc led by the city’s former mayor, Mamikon Aslanian, defeated Pashinian’s Civil Contract party in a municipal election. Ten days after the vote, Aslanian was arrested on corruption charges rejected by him as politically motivated. Later in December 2022, an Armenian court blocked sessions of the new city council poised to elect Aslanian as mayor.
The local election winner was released from custody in July this year while continuing to stand trial for an allegedly illegal privatization of municipal land. Incidentally, Abovian, Vanadzor’s arrested chief architect, is one of several other defendants in the case. Despite the indictment, he not only avoided arrest but also continued to work in the municipal administration.