Criminal Case Initiated Against Hovik Aghazaryan

A criminal case has been initiated against Hovik Aghazaryan for allegedly organizing leaks containing state secrets. In response to a query from Factinfo, the Communist Party stated that a criminal proceeding was launched based on a notification received from the Prosecutor's Office under Article 427, Part 1 of the Armenian Criminal Code (Disclosing information containing state secrets by a person who had the right to access it, provided there are no attributes of the crime as defined in Article 418 of this Code (state treason)).

On December 2, Hovik Aghazaryan announced that he would not resign from his parliamentary mandate at the 'request' of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Following this, on December 3, the ruling Civil Contract party decided to expel him from the party. The reason cited for Aghazaryan’s expulsion includes the leaking of confidential information of state and party significance, as well as gross violations of public moral norms.

The authorities became aware of these 'leaks' after Aghazaryan's phone was confiscated during a criminal investigation regarding an incident involving MP Arghisti Kyaramyan and Aghazaryan, currently underway in the Communist Party. The investigator accessed the phone's content, and information containing pre-trial secrets became available to Nikol Pashinyan and the Civil Contract party.

From the parliamentary podium, Nikol Pashinyan stated that this information was provided to him by operational agencies. 'That phone has ended up with an independent body in the framework of a criminal case, and having the necessary permissions, that truly independent body gave an order to another body, which is not so independent. And that not-so-independent body, while executing the request, encountered information that contained threats related to state security, including counterintelligence threats. Naturally, that body was obliged to take action within its framework, including with the owner of the phone, and at the same time, it was obliged to report to its superior—the Prime Minister,' Pashinyan stated.

It has been clarified that the Prosecutor's Office and the pre-trial body were not aware of the operational data, as the publication regarding Hovik Aghazaryan's organization of leaks containing state secrets was sent to the Anti-Corruption Committee of the Republic of Armenia to solve the question of initiating proceedings.