Criminal Inaction of Armenia's Prosecutor General
“Seven years have passed since the scandalous wiretapping of phone conversations involving Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, former Director of the National Security Service Artur Vanetsyan, and former Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee Sasun Khachatryan. To this day, it remains unclear who carried out the wiretapping of these high-ranking officials and how the recordings were leaked online.
It is known, however, that two years ago, the Chief Department for Investigation of Particularly Important Cases at the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Armenia reopened the criminal case concerning the illegal wiretapping and subsequent online leak.”
To recall, the wiretapped conversations involving Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, former Director of the National Security Service Artur Vanetsyan, and former Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee Sasun Khachatryan, which surfaced online in 2018, revealed that investigative bodies were initiating criminal cases directly at the instruction of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and that courts were being pressured to deliver predetermined verdicts. As we have noted in previous articles, such actions are classified under the Armenian Criminal Code as an overthrow of the constitutional order.
The Public Tribunal emphasizes the critical importance of protecting the confidentiality of phone conversations involving the country’s highest officials and expresses concern over he unresolved status of the criminal case concerning the illegal wiretapping. At the same time, it stresses that alongside investigating the wiretapping itself, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia must initiate a criminal case against Nikol Pashinyan, Artur Vanetsyan, and Sasun Khachatryan for the overthrow of the constitutional order.
The failure to do so and the continued inaction indicate an indirect complicity of Artur Davtyan and Anna Vardapetyan, the former and current Prosecutors General of Armenia, in the crimes committed by Nikol Pashinyan.
