YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — A senior executive of a major software company and her former colleague related to parliament speaker Alen Simonyan were released from custody on Monday, February 12, about two weeks after being arrested in a corruption investigation openly criticized by some Armenian officials.
But the founder and owner of the US-registered company Synergy International Systems, Ashot Hovanesyan, remained under arrest despite serious concern expressed by an association of Armenian tech firms.
Hovanesyan and the freed suspects, Lili Mkryan and Ani Gevorgyan, were charged with helping senior Ministry of Economy officials rig a procurement tender which was controversially won by Synergy but invalidated by a court last summer. Unlike them, the indicted government officials, including former Deputy Economy Minister Ani Ispiryan, were quickly freed or moved to house arrest. Economy Minister Vahan Kerobyan insisted last week that the accusations of abuse of power brought against his subordinates are baseless.
On February 6, about 70 lawmakers representing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party petitioned prosecutors to release the three suspects remaining in custody. One of the suspects, Gevorgyan, left Synergy last year. She is the wife of Simonyan’s brother, Karlen.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General made a veiled reference to that petition when it announced and commented on the release of the young women. It said they both have testified about “circumstances of essential importance for the criminal proceedings” and are now less likely to engage in “inappropriate behavior.”
Hovanesyan’s lawyer, Gor Ohanian, said, meanwhile, that he hopes his client will be freed on the same grounds. The Synergy boss gave “quite extensive testimony” following his arrest, Ohanian said without elaborating.
