A journalist with the Civic.am website controlled by Pashinian’s party alleged last month that Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian was recruited by Russia’s foreign intelligence service and paid millions to dollars to lead ongoing antigovernment protests in Yerevan. The journalist, Davit Levonian, offered no proof of the allegations picked by other pro-government media outlets as well as Pashinian’s political allies.
A provincial diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which was headed by Galstanian until recently, petitioned law-enforcement authorities to either bring espionage charges against the clergyman or prosecute Levonian for “false denunciation,” a criminal offense under Armenian law.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday that the NSS has looked into the allegations and found no evidence in support of them. It did not report criminal proceedings against the government-linked reporter who made them.
Galstanian faced similar allegations from pro-government parliamentarians and Pashinian himself even before taking protests against the Armenian government’s territorial concessions to Azerbaijan from the northern Tavush province to Yerevan on May 9 to demand the prime minister’s resignation. The archbishop and opposition leaders supporting him shrugged off them, saying that Pashinian is desperately trying to discredit the protest movement.
Pashinian claimed on May 7 that the protests are actively supported by foreign intelligence “agents.” “We know about networks of agents active in Armenia,” he said without naming anyone.
Neither the prosecutors nor the NSS launched formal investigations into Pashinian’s allegations. Prosecutor-General Anna Vardapetian said earlier in May that similar claims made by Pashinian allies are mere “political statements” that do not warrant criminal proceedings.