YEREVAN (Arka) — On September 11, the head of Armenia’s Special Investigative Service (SIS) Sasun Khachatryan said the goal of a secretly recorded audio recording containing his telephone conversation with the chief of the National Security Service Artur Vanetsyan, in which they discuss several high-profile criminal cases, launched against former top officials that went viral on internet the same day is the desire to make them silent.
“The goal of this audio recording is to make us work less actively, but we are determined to bring the case to the end,” Khachatryan said during a special press conference on Tuesday.
He noted that the investigation uncovered sensational details of the March 1, 2008 events, and that is the reason why the people responsible for that crime want to derail the investigation.
“The army not only participated in the events of March 1. The servicemen opened fire on residential buildings in Leo Street,” Khachatryan said.
In the audio Vanetsyan and Khachatryan discuss particular circumstances of the case against Kocharyan, who is charged with overthrowing Armenia’s constitutional order during the 2008 violence in which 10 people were killed.
In particular, Vanetsyan says that the judge who was supposed to decide on Kocharyan’s arrest was afraid to make a decision and telephoned him to ask for directions. In the audio the NSS chief also repeatedly warned the SIS head not to arrest former deputy defense minister Yuri Khachaturov, who currently serves as secretary-general of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization. Vanetsyan explained that Khachaturov’s arrest could entail “political problems.”
