Defense Lawyer for Detained Deputy Minister Requests Interrogation of Arayik Harutyunyan

The defense attorney for Gevorg Loretsyan, the former Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports of Armenia, has requested that Minister Arayik Harutyunyan be interrogated. This was reported to "Haykakan Zhamanak" by the defense attorney himself, Levon Sahakyan (first from the right in the photo). The request was submitted to the investigator before the holidays.

The attorney elaborated on the importance of this interrogation: "A few days before the arrest, Loretsyan had submitted a request for his resignation. Specifically, he had asked the minister to recommend to the prime minister that he be relieved of his duties. We believe that this request is of critical significance to the case. In particular, if charges have been laid that he intended to provide support to a certain company related to his official position, this demonstrates that he had no such intentions and was even preparing to leave his job. We do not know whether the investigator seized that request during the relevant searches, so we have requested that the minister be interrogated to provide appropriate testimony regarding all of this," Sahakyan stated, adding that he did not know why Loretsyan had wished to resign from his position.

It should be noted that Loretsyan was arrested and subsequently detained at the beginning of December. On December 7, he, his driver, and the president of one of the football clubs operating in Armenia were charged with receiving particularly large bribes, with detention as a pretrial measure being selected for them. According to a statement from the National Security Service, the Deputy Minister allegedly obtained a particularly large bribe after facilitating the procurement of sports equipment and attire for the needs of organizations under the ministry through competitions announced for that purpose, along with the assistance of the driver, reaching a corresponding agreement on receiving the bribe. Immediately after a portion of the money was handed over to the driver's assistant by the businessman, they were detained.