The data was stored in Hovik Aghazarian’s mobile phone which Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) confiscated after he rejected Pashinian's resignation “request” texted on November 17. Pashinian shared it with senior members of his Civil Contract party before they decided to expel Aghazarian from the party on December 3. They accused him of leaking “confidential information of state and partisan importance” to media and violating “public morality norms.”
Aghazarian and his lawyer, Hakob Charoyan, maintain that the breach of the personal data constituted a crime defined by the Armenian Criminal Code. Earlier this month, Charoyan petitioned law-enforcement authorities to find out how the ACC, which repeatedly interrogated his client late last month, allowed it to happen.
The ACC refused to open a criminal case in connection with the leak. The lawyer responded by demanding that prosecutors overseeing the law-enforcement body overturn that decision.
“The [relevant ACC] investigator said that he didn’t commit any criminal offense and provide [the data] to anyone, while the National Security Service (NSS) redirected all our questions to the investigator,” Charoyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday.
Pashinian denied breaking the law when he spoke in the parliament on December 4. He implied that another security agency, presumably the NSS, passed Aghazarian’s personal data on to him after finding there unspecified “information containing threats to state security.”
Charoyan countered that the leaked information included intimidate details of Aghazarian’s private life. The lawmaker, who denies accessing and disclosing any state secrets, claimed on December 5 that “powerful” individuals are threatening to publicize them if he keeps refusing to quit the parliament. Some of those purported details appeared on pro-government social media accounts in the following days.
As well as refusing to launch a criminal inquiry into the leak, the ACC said last week that it is formally investigating “reports” that Aghazarian leaked state secrets to media. The move may have been a prelude to the indictment and arrest of Aghazarian which would have to be sanctioned by the parliament.
Pashinian stated on December 4 that “political, moral, and other levers” will be used to strip Aghazarian of his parliament seat. Critics condemned that statement as an illegal order issued to investigators and courts.
On December 11, another Civil Contract parliamentarian, Hakob Aslanian, denounced the crackdown on Aghazarian. He too was ousted from the ruling party afterwards.