Hovik Aghazarian again denied Civil Contract claims that he systematically leaked classified information discussed during high-level party meetings to media outlets.
The Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) opened on Monday a criminal case under an article of the Armenian Criminal Code dealing with the disclosure of state secrets. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and members of his entourage alleged such disclosure after controversially accessing Aghazarian’s private communication stored in his mobile phone.
The ACC confiscated the phone late last month in a separate investigation launched shortly after Aghazarian turned down Pashinian’s “request” to give up his parliament seat. The lawmaker as well as critics of the Armenian government have accused the law-enforcement agency of illegally making its content available to the prime minister.
“I was very, very careful in order not to find myself in this terrible situation,” Aghazarian told journalists. “I will come out of this situation because they can’t prove anything. In essence, there is nothing to prove.”
He described the fresh ACC probe as a “tool of pressure” exerted on him. “So far I am able to withstand it,” he said.
Aghazarian lawyer, Hakob Charoyan, suggested, meanwhile, that Prosecutor-General Anna Vardapetian will next month ask the parliament controlled by Pashinian’s party to allow investigators to indict and even arrest his client. Vardapetian’s office said that it has no such plans yet.
Pashinian stated on December 4 that “political, moral, and other levers” will be used to strip Aghazarian of his parliament seat. The only legal way of doing that is to lift his immunity from prosecution and convict him of a crime.
The 64-year-old lawmaker was among eight officials who received on November 17 text messages from Pashinian “asking” them to resign. All of them except Aghazarian stepped down in the following days. They included Argishti Kyaramian, the head of another law-enforcement body, the Investigative Committee, who bitterly argued with Aghazarian in the parliament in October.
Aghazarian insisted on Tuesday that his clash with Kyaramian is not the reason why he came under strong pressure to quit the parliament.
“There are more profound and more dangerous issues at play here,” he said without elaborating. “They should not be oversimplified. God forbid that the concerns that I have but can’t talk about [publicly] come true.”