The law-enforcement agency defended on Friday the purchase of the Toyota LandCruiser 300 SUV carried out early this month. Its spokesman, Gor Abrahamian, said Kyaramian’s previous limousine was too old and required urgent replacement. Abrahamian said it has been used by him and his predecessors for the last ten years.
“It became necessary to buy a new car catering for him also because of the specificities and difficulties of the work of the Investigative Committee chairman as well as security considerations,” the official told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Abrahamian insisted that a cheaper vehicle would not have met those requirements, a claim disputed by Varuzhan Hoktanian, the programs director at Armenia’s leading anti-corruption watchdog affiliated with Transparency International.
Hoktanian described the expensive acquisition as another instance of blatant profligacy in a country facing grave socioeconomic and security challenges. He said it testifies to the “absence of a sense of statehood.”
Kyaramian, 33, is widely regarded as one of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s trusted lieutenants. He has headed the Investigative Committee since 2021. He had held four other high-level positions in the Armenian security apparatus and government since Pashinian came to power in 2018.
Pashinian’s government faced similar criticism after deciding on July 11 to buy 49 more vehicles for government officials at a cost of just over 1 billion drams ($2.7 million). It gave no reason for the decision.
Pashinian had decried the large number of government cars in Armenia when serving as an opposition parliamentarian in the past. He said that there must be no more than 35 limousines reserved for the country’s highest-ranking officials.
The overall number of government cars does not seem to have decreased during his six-year rule. Moreover, Pashinian has been criticized for buying additional expensive cars for his and his family members’ security detail.