On 23 April, Judge  Vardges Sargsyan presided over the hearing on the case of former Chief of Police Vladimir Gasparyan, his former Deputy Levon Yeranosyan, Head of the Police Internal Audit Department Vardan Tunyan and Commander of Police Unit Gurgen Grigoryan.

According to the case materials, Head of the Internal Audit Department of the Police, Vardan Tunyan, asked Yeranosyan to accept his acquaintance Vahram Nazaryan to serve in the police forces. The mentioned person was hired, but did not show up for duty. Instead, he performed the duties of Tunyan’s driver. In this case, the state suffered a particularly large loss in the amount of 7 million 954 thousand AMD, as a result of which, through negligence, serious consequences were caused.

According to Iravaban.net, at the beginning of the session, the judge told Vladimir Gasparyan’s defense attorney Alexander Kochubaev that considering Gasparyan’s statement, pending the submission of the petition, they have not completed the stage of completing the trial yet, they are waiting for the submission of the petition by the defense attorney.

The defender mentioned that before the beginning of the session, the prosecutor informed him that he has a petition to present, and it would be correct to present his petition after the prosecutor’s.

Public Prosecutor Tigran Yenokyan said that there are documents in the criminal case, which he is requesting to be published, and each of these documents proves the act the defendants are accused of. According to him, the documents are in volumes 1 to 12 of the criminal file, and after publishing the documents, he will also make a motion.

Starting with the publication of the documents in the first volume, the prosecutor presented the letter received from the Genral Department of Criminal Investigation of the Police, which refers to the history of Yulia Gasparyan’s border crossings, it consists of 4 pages. In particular, in the period from 2013 to 2018, there is information in the materials of the criminal case that she was often absent from the RA. In the next page, there is a certificate of state registration of rights to real estate in the name of Vladimir Gasparyan’s mother, Susan Baghdasaryan, in Aknalich community.

On 29 May, 2018, Gevorg Martirosyan, an employee of the Internal Audit Department, gave an explanation to the police as a result of the official investigation conducted against Vardan Tunyan in the Internal Security Department of the Police.

In the explanation, he stated: the place of registration and the address of residence, he served in the police system since 2007, he held the said position since 2016, he received incentives during his service, but he has no disciplinary penalties. To the question how many official cars were there in the department? He answeredthat there were four cars in the department, one of which was a Toyota Сorolla (the car’s license plate number is indicated). He did not remember the license plates of the other three cars, but he said that the deputy head of the department drove two of them without a driver, and the other car was parked in the garage in front of his house.

According to the employee Vahram, whose last name he does not know was driving, Tunyan’s car, he cannot provide information about him, and he also said that he does not know whether the car is registered with the police or not. He stated that he does not have any information regarding the driving of those cars by Vardan Tunyan and others.

According to the case materials, Head of the Internal Audit Department of the Police, Vardan Tunyan, asked Yeranosyan to accept his acquaintance Vahram Nazaryan to serve in the police forces. The mentioned person was hired, but did not show up for duty. Instead, he performed the duties of Tunyan’s driver. In this case, the state suffered a particularly large loss in the amount of 7 million 954 thousand AMD, as a result of which, through negligence, serious consequences were caused.

On 29 May, 2018, in the presence of Gevorg Martirosyan, the area adjacent to the “Petak” fair was inspected in order to find a white car of “VAZ” 25 06  model. The car, with missing license plates, was searched, the mentioned car was found in the parking lot of the fair. Martirosyan said that the car has been there for about 3 years. There were also photos of the car attached to the documents.

On 25 May, 2018, Artur Davtyan provided an explanation. His responsibilities include conducting audits and preparing information. The orders for business trips to police units were signed by the head of the Internal Audit Department, Vardan Tunyan, and the head of the financial and economic department of the police paid 8,000 drams per day.

Further, an explanation was taken from Gayane Hakobyan, who also worked in the Internal Audit Department of the Police. In response to the police inquiry she saide that Vahram was the driver of the mentioned car, he worked in the Internal Police Forces, but he was released at the moment, and she did not know any other information about the other issues.

The public prosecutor also published a job list of the Internal Audit Department, which includes the personal data of employees, information about their business trips, as well as where and for what time they had been sent on a business trip.

The documents also include a certificate of the Internal Audit Department of the Police regarding vehicles and allocated gasoline. The prosecutor published the data on how much gasoline was allocated for the vehicle during the mentioned periods and how much it cost.

In addition, in 2014-2018, Vardan Tunyan ordered Artur Shahnazaryan, who held the position of Junior Inspector of the motor vehicle fleet of the Police Economic Department, not to show up for work due to his personal interest and to carry out the transportation services for his family at the expense of state funds. “He ordered to carry his family members to different places several times during the week.”

Artur Shahnazaryan received 3 million 750 thousand drams salary corresponding to the rate of his position. In addition, Tunyan provided 360 liters of gasoline to the employees of the Internal Audit Department out of the 7,805 liters of gasoline entrusted to him for travels to the marzes. And he stole 7445 liters of gasoline worth 2 million 762 thousand drams by embezzlement.

In November 2018, the Head of the RA Ministry of Defense sent a letter to the Head of the Department of General Department of Investigation of Particularly Important Cases in response to the letter dated 31 October, 2018, in which it was noted that the retired non-commissioned officer Nelson Saroyan had served in the defense system from 4 December, 2004 to 17 May 2018

According to the case materials, Nelson Saroyan worked as a driver for Lyova Sargsyan, the brother of the 3rd President of the Republic of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan.

There were various orders in the presented documents, in particular, the order dated 1 July, 1997 on the examination of the service of the RA Armed Forces, which was signed by Minister Vazgen Sargsyan was presented. According to that order, the conduct of the official examination should be put into action, by the Deputy Ministers of Defense, the heads of the Departments of the Defense, Commanders, and Institutions should organized the study the application of the instruction on the official examination of the Armed Forces. The instruction consists of five chapters, the general provisions, the grounds for implementation, and the maintenance procedure are mentioned.

In 2003, the order on the official examination of the Armed Forces was about putting into effect the directive on the official examination of the Armed Forces, which was signed by the Minister of Defense Serzh Sargsyan.

The documents contain a letter from the Deputy Chief of Police, Police Colonel Martirosyan, addressed to the Deputy Chief of Police Hovhannisyan on 8 June, 2020.

It was known that the employees of the mentioned police department in the special investigative service received information that Yulia Gasparyan, the daughter of the former Chief of Police Gasparyan, never showed up for duty after being appointed at the internal police forces, and the Chief of Police, being aware of this circumstance, instead of dismissing her from service, gave another rank.

Earlier, we reported that the title of “Lieutenant Colonel” awarded to the daughter of the former Chief of Police was declared invalid.

The prosecutor stated that the available documents are proofs justifying their guilt, and requested to recognize them as such.

The representative of the defense side stated that he had a question for the prosecutor to express his position on the petition. The judge said that there was no question-and-answer procedure yet, that issue wpuld be discussed at the next session.

Due to the heavy workload of the court, the session was postponed; the defense side will present its petition at the next session.

The next court session in this case will be held on 30 April.

Details in the video.

Mariam Shahnazaryan