Video: High-ranking military officer carried out tasks for Azerbaijani intelligence services, NSS

The National Security Service (NSS) of Armenia has concluded the preliminary investigation into a criminal case concerning state treason committed by a high-ranking military officer. This information has been reported by the NSS press service.

According to the announcement, sufficient factual evidence has been obtained indicating that the military officer, previously holding several senior positions in the Armenian Armed Forces, committed state treason against the territorial integrity and external security of the Republic of Armenia. Additionally, he created an organized group that engaged in licensed entrepreneurial activities without state registration, accounting, or special permits (licenses), causing particularly large damage to the state.

The accused military officer obtained and illegally kept military munitions, including ammunition, grenades, and combat fuses. During his service, he was officially permitted to handle information classified as state and service secrets.

Years ago, while in Georgia, he came to the attention of Azerbaijani intelligence services operating in that country and was recruited by their staff, receiving specific assignments which involved collecting and storing information about the external security, armed forces, and armaments of Armenia and Artsakh. He transferred documents and information accessible due to his service to representatives of a foreign state engaged in hostile activities, as well as provided other assistance for such activities.

Facing financial difficulties and aiming to gain material benefits through treason, he accepted offers from unidentified representatives of Azerbaijani intelligence services for remuneration, which negatively impacted the territorial integrity and external security of Armenia and Artsakh. Subsequently, he began implementing these offers, developing and selecting ways to establish contact with Armenian state bodies, including those conducting counterintelligence, in concealed manners to transfer relevant information and offer other assistance.

To achieve his criminal intentions, he collected and stored at his residence information on military bases, their locations, designations, unit compositions, quantities and types of military equipment and armaments, combat exercises, radio frequencies, call signs, communication plans, and details about enemy forces, including tanks and artillery, as well as their total numbers and coordinates of priority target sites for the enemy.

Moreover, leveraging his relationships within the Armenian Armed Forces and the Artsakh Defense Army, he periodically met with personnel from various divisions to gather data on specific operations conducted by these units and their artillery. He often traveled from Armenia to Georgia, where he met or communicated with representatives of Azerbaijani intelligence services within and outside the Azerbaijani embassy, unlawfully transmitting state or service secret information he collected and stored.

Throughout this period, the high-ranking officer attempted to keep his identity hidden, including the contact numbers and means of communication with the intelligence services. Investigation results indicate that he personally went to the Azerbaijani embassy in Georgia to meet with unidentified representatives of Azerbaijani intelligence services, disguising his appearance to avoid detection and relaying state secrets he had gathered.

Consequently, the high-ranking military officer passed state and service secret information to representatives of a foreign country, providing the enemy with real opportunities to execute precise calculations of forces and means, determine the number and dispositions of the units involved in operations he undertook, and create favorable conditions for the enemy to conduct tactical changes and plan the possible scale of operations by different divisions of the Armenian Armed Forces, thereby obstructing the proper execution of objectives set for these units.

In addition, evidence collected during the investigation has revealed that this individual, as part of an organized group, illegally engaged in licensed entrepreneurial activities by importing over 200 military-grade items, specifically tank headsets, into Armenia with a friend and selling them to a foreign citizen, thus inflicting significant damage on the state amounting to 7,466,505 AMD.

With sufficient evidence established during the investigation, the high-ranking military officer has been formally charged and placed under arrest as a measure of constraint. The criminal case was sent to the prosecutor for judicial oversight with an indictment for state treason, engaging in illegal entrepreneurial activities causing substantial damage to the state, and illegally acquiring, transporting, and storing military munitions.