The Investigative Committee refused to give any other details of the investigation launched on July 4.
Jahangirian stepped down on July 1 ten days after the release of a recording in which he appeared to warn Ruben Vartazarian, the previous chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), to quit or face criminal charges.
The 14-minute recording caused uproar in Armenia, with opposition figures and civic activists demanding that Jahangirian be not only sacked by also prosecuted. The latter claimed that he did not blackmail Vartazarian and simply used “psychological ploys” to engineer his resignation.
The Investigative Committee opened the criminal case under articles of the Criminal Code dealing with abuse of power and obstruction of justice. A spokesman for the agency declined to say whether it has questioned Jahangirian.
The investigators reportedly interrogated Vartazarian last week. He did not deny on Wednesday media reports that he refused to give them full audio of his February 2021 dinner meeting with Jahangirian.
Armenia - Ruben Vartazarian, head of the Supreme Judicial Council, at a news conference in Yerevan, June 20, 2022.
The meeting took place two months before Vartazarian was controversially charged with obstruction of justice and suspended as SJC chairman amid rising tensions with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Vartazarian said that he secretly recorded the conversation with Jahangirian “for self-defense.” “The atmosphere of hatred is so intense right now that I don’t want to publicize other parts of the recording and create new tensions in our society or problems between some individuals,” he said.
Opposition leaders and other government critics say Pashinian installed Jahangirian as head of the body overseeing Armenian courts to curb judicial independence. They have repeatedly accused the prime minister of seeking to increase government influence on the courts under the guise of Western-backed judicial reforms.
The authorities deny this, insisting that they want to strengthen the rule of law. Pashinian admitted late last month that the scandal caused by the leaked audio undermined the credibility of the reforms.