Tonoyan, two generals and an arms dealer were arrested by the National Security Service (NSS) two months ago in a criminal investigation into supplies of allegedly outdated rockets to Armenia’s armed forces. The NSS charged them with fraud and embezzlement that cost the state almost 2.3 billion drams ($4.7 million). All four suspects deny any wrongdoing.
Tonoyan’s lawyers again dismissed the accusations as baseless on Monday in response to a weekend court ruling allowing NSS investigators to hold Tonoyan in pretrial detention for two more months. In a statement, they claimed that the investigators lack “professional knowledge” of weaponry and ammunition and are simply keen to discredit the former defense minister.
“We again want to bring the political leadership’s attention to the non-objective investigation conducted with regard to Davit Tonoyan,” they said.
The NSS said in September that a private intermediary delivered the rockets to Armenia in 2011 and that the Defense Ministry refused to buy them after discovering that they are unusable.
Seyran Ohanian, Armenia’s defense minister from 2008 to 2016, confirmed afterwards that they were not accepted by the military during his tenure. Ohanian, who is now a senior opposition lawmaker, said the rebuff forced the supplier to store them at a Defense Ministry arms depot.
Citing the secrecy of the ongoing probe, the NSS has declined to publicly specify the date of the supply contract subsequently signed by the Defense Ministry or give other details.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian appointed Tonoyan as defense minister just days after coming to power in May 2018. Tonoyan was sacked in November 2020 less than two weeks after a Russian-brokered agreement stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Some senior pro-Pashinian parliamentarians blamed him for Armenia’s defeat in the six-week war. The prime minister faced angry opposition demonstrations at the time.