Delay in Investigative Expertise in Tonoyan and Galstyan Case Raises Questions

On September 29, former Minister of Defense David Tonoyan was arrested, and the following day he was detained. Just a few days earlier, on September 25, former head of military aviation Avetik Muradyan was also arrested. Both have been detained in connection with the same case concerning alleged abuses related to arms and ammunition acquired in 2011.

According to the National Security Service (NSS), the Ministry of Defense acquired defective, expired, and unusable missiles in 2016. Some of these were handed over to the Ministry of Defense until an expert examination could be conducted to determine the fate of future batches. However, the transaction was executed in 2018, and according to an NSS statement, a sum equivalent to 4 million 655 thousand 200 USD, approximately 2 billion 277 million 323 thousand 840 AMD, was unjustly transferred at the supplier's expense. The supplier company, owned by David Galstyan—nicknamed “Patron David”—has been in custody for several months.

According to information from “Hayraparak,” during this period, the investigative body discovered that out of the aviation missiles, only 26 had failed to fire during testing, which is within normal limits. It should be noted that David Galstyan had previously been arrested and released when the charges were determined to be insufficiently substantiated. This time, a group of defendants is detained, and the preliminary reports have created an impression that a significant crime has been committed, naturally swaying public opinion in favor of detention.

Armen Harutyunyan, Galstyan's lawyer, stated in an interview with the media that for a month, the investigative body has not taken any steps or conducted any tests to determine that there is no issue with unusable ammunition, so it cannot be concluded that the NSS made an error and that Galstyan should be released. He added, “They claim that defective, substandard weapons were supplied. We said we would conduct an examination to substantiate that this is not substandard and unusable weaponry, but appropriate arms. However, we learned that the investigator left the quality-related examination incomplete. Later, when we submitted a request and reviewed the case materials, we found that he also neglected the price issue, as they argued that the weapons were sold to us at an inflated price, double the market value. We insisted that the quality should be assessed by a specialist, and neither I, nor they, nor especially the prosecutor, have the relevant knowledge to determine whether it is usable or unusable. There should be two people to make the assessment; one is the Ministry of Defense, whose representative you have detained. If you do not believe him, appoint your independent expert. However, now they have halted the examinations for two months,” stated Harutyunyan.

Regarding the information that only 26 missiles were found to be unusable in the examination, Harutyunyan remarked that prior to the examination, there were data in the case materials indicating that there were issues with the mentioned quantity of 26 missiles that arose during the five years between 2014-2018. “There is some document stating that there are specific issues with several missiles; however, whether the problem relates directly to the missile or the firing mechanism is a second matter, but no testing has taken place, which would have recorded any defect in any missile. The important matter is not that; what is important is to establish whether the existing problematic batch is ultimately usable or unusable. But as of now, no examination has been conducted, even though we are confident that the results would yield a positive conclusion since there are no quality issues related to the missiles; they were normal missiles. In such cases, the case would reach a deadlock because if they conduct tests and find no issues or defects, they can no longer claim it was unusable. That's why they openly decided to halt the examination without hiding it. We have filed complaints to the prosecutor's office, but the prosecutor’s office is not responding,” the lawyer added.

He also mentioned that recently two more individuals who had testified in a witness capacity and provided testimony contrary to the accusations were arrested in this case. However, he does not recognize who these witnesses are, only knowing that they are employees of the Ministry of Defense. According to Harutyunyan, this shows that law enforcement has shifted to a policy of obtaining testimonies through pressure.