Armenia’s Prosecutor General has requested parliament waive immunity for two opposition MPs in order to initiate criminal proceedings against them.
The request came a month after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused the opposition of corruption during a parliamentary session.
The two MPs for whom the Prosecutor General has requested that parliament waive immunity, Seyran Ohanyan and Artsvik Minasyan held ministerial positions under previous governments, and are currently members of Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance, the largest opposition faction. Ohanyan serves as the faction’s parliamentary leader.
According to the Prosecutor General’s appeal, Ohanyan has been accused of unlawfully acquiring a 10,526-square-meter plot of land near Lake Sevan, designated as a nature reserve within the Sevan National Park. He was also accused of building a private house without approval and of not declaring ownership of the house since becoming an MP in 2021.
Ohanyan is also accused of receiving ֏58 million ($151,000) in bribes during his term as defence minister for providing illegal advantages in the ministry’s procurement processes.
Minasyan was accused of failing to fulfil his official duties during his time as Environmental Protection Minister.
Minasyan allegedly did not take measures to ‘eliminate the consequences’ of Ohanyan’s violations, and did not ‘ensure the application of legal accountability measures’ against him, thereby causing significant damage to the state.
In parliament in May, Pashinyan lost his temper after being accused of lacking the ‘political will’ to hold his own team accountable for reports of corruption.
In turn he accused the opposition of being corrupt and of being ‘foreign spies’.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
‘What are you even doing sitting in this hall? If I were to act based on press publications, I’d have to drag all of you and throw you into the basement of the National Security Service (NSS)’, Pashinyan said.
In response, one opposition MP said that Pashinyan ‘should be the first to go’ to the NSS’ basement, to which Pashinyan replied with the same words, only adding ‘and you will go’.
As MPs continued to argue and yell at each other, Pashinyan addressed Ohanyan, saying that he embodied ‘corruption from head to toe’.
Pashinyan also questioned the legality of Ohanyan possessing a property near Lake Sevan.
’What right do you have to have a house on the shores of Lake Sevan?’ Pashinyan asked during the session.
Both Ohanyan and Minasyan considered the cases launched against them to be ‘criminal instructions’ from Pashinyan.
In January, the Prosecutor General’s Office pressed abuse of power charges against Ohanyan relating to his tenure as Chief of General Staff in 2008.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
