ARRESTED OPPOSITIONIST CONDEMNS ‘POLITICAL PERSECUTION’
By Karine Kalantarian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
May 29 2007

Aleksandr Arzumanian, a prominent opposition politician charged with
money laundering, remained adamant in denying any wrongdoing and
alleging political motives behind his controversial arrest as he
spoke to RFE/RL in a maximum-security prison in Yerevan on Tuesday.

"I repeat that I never did anything illicit," he said. "This is
political persecution."

Arzumanian has been kept in the basement jail of Armenia’s National
Security Service for the past three weeks on charges of illegally
receiving a large amount of money from Levon Markos, a fugitive Russian
businessman of Armenian descent. His arrest came two days after NSS
officers of searched his Yerevan apartment and confiscated $55,4000
kept there.

They also confiscated a comparable amount of cash from the Yerevan
apartment of Vahan Shirkhanian, another prominent oppositionist. But
unlike Arzumanian, Shirkhanian was not accused of attempting to
"legalize revenues obtained by criminal means."

The two men used to held senior positions in government and now
co-ahead the Civil Resistance Movement, a small opposition group
campaigning for regime change in the country. They both deny being
financed by Markos.

Arzumanian, who had served as Armenia’s foreign minister from
1996-1998, claimed that he was arrested because President Robert
Kocharian and Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian were worried about street
protests staged by other opposition groups. "The authorities were in
total panic before the elections as the wave of protests was gaining
momentum and demonstrations were growing bigger," he said.

"During the nearly one month that I have been here I have not faced
any questions or [investigative] actions. I was simply isolated. They
themselves have probably understood that they have no facts," added
the former minister.

Arzumanian’s lawyer, Hovik Arsenian, similarly claimed that a
seven-member team of NSS investigators tasked with the case is
essentially idle. He said they have failed, in particular, to
investigate media reports quoting another ethnic Armenian citizen of
Russia as admitting that he is the one who sent the confiscated cash to
Arzumanian. The man, identified as Aleksandr Aghazarian, was reported
to have revealed his address and offered the NSS to question him.