David Tonoyan Remains Deprived of the Opportunity to Meet with Relatives

Former Minister of Defense David Tonoyan, who is in custody at the national security service detention facility, is still deprived of the opportunity to meet with relatives and communicate by phone, as the previously imposed ban remains in effect. This was stated to 24News by David Tonoyan's lawyer, Sergey Hovhannisyan.

Tonoyan is accused of embezzlement in particularly large amounts. The former minister does not accept the charges made against him and has repeatedly called for a public trial to prove his innocence publicly.

Tonoyan's defense attorney, Sergey Hovhannisyan, said that Tonoyan himself instructed his lawyers not to submit a motion to lift the ban on meetings with relatives from the outset of the case. The attorney mentioned that the prosecution initially justified Tonoyan's detention by asserting that if he were at liberty, he would obstruct the investigation and influence witnesses, among other reasons. “And the very purpose of not submitting a motion to lift the ban is to alleviate the concerns of the prosecutorial body, and in this case, the court,” he noted.

According to the lawyer, Tonoyan is also deprived of the opportunity to exchange video messages: “Correspondence is not prohibited, but computers, technical devices, and storage media are considered prohibited items, and it is not possible to transmit them.”

It is worth noting that today the NSS disseminated information that former head of the rocket forces and artillery of the Armed Forces of Armenia, Major General Armen Harutyunyan, has been arrested. Harutyunyan is accused of facilitating the process of accepting unsuitable property within the framework of a contract signed between the Ministry of Defense and a company operating in Armenia, and embezzling particularly large sums from the Ministry of Defense in return.

Sergey Hovhannisyan stated that he has no information and does not believe that Harutyunyan’s case will have any connection to David Tonoyan’s case.