The Warden of 'Kosh' Prison Involved in Deal with 'Zone Watcher'

The newspaper 'Jamanak' reports: 'As is known, the National Security Service arrested Lyova Baghdasaryan, the head of 'Kosh' penitentiary, in 2019 on bribery charges, but he was later released under signature, and the case was forwarded to the Special Investigation Service (SIS).'

'The SIS has declared the completion of the preliminary investigation regarding this criminal case and has sent it to court. According to the SIS, Lyova Baghdasaryan has been charged with exhibiting negligence as an official while holding the position of head of the 'Kosh' penitentiary under the decree of the Minister of Justice of Armenia on March 23, 2015. This negligence involved failing to record violations of the regime, not implementing measures aimed at discovering prohibited items, and creating privileged conditions for certain convicts, in collaboration with criminal authority known as the 'zone watcher', Haik Karapetyan, as well as funds gathered with the help of another criminal authority, Arsen Hovhannisyan, through the previous convict of the 'Kosh' penitentiary, Arthur Hovhannisyan. On September 17, 2019, at a car wash located at 197 Armenakyan Street, Norq-Marash administrative district of Yerevan, he received a bribe of 700,000 AMD, after which he was caught by NSS employees.'

'It should be noted that Haik Karapetyan and Arthur Hovhannisyan have also been charged with bribing Lyova Baghdasaryan. Furthermore, Baghdasaryan has not accepted the accusations to this day. The case will be reviewed by David Balayan, the brother of the Deputy Minister of Defense, Gabriel Balayan.'

For more details, see today's issue of the newspaper.