PROSECUTORS CONFIRM HIGH-PROFILE ARREST
By Ruzanna Khachatrian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Sept 7 2007

Prosecutors confirmed on Friday that they have arrested a nephew of
the mayor of the northern Armenian city of Vanadzor but said the move
has no connection with the recent murder of a top regional prosecutor.

A spokeswoman for the Prosecutor-General’s Office told RFE/RL that
Arman Darpinian, 24, was placed under arrested early in the morning.

Sona Truzian said he is suspected of illegally possessing weapons
ammunition. She could not give further details, saying only that the
arrest did not stem from the ongoing criminal investigation into the
August 26 shooting of Albert Ghazarian, the chief prosecutor of the
northern Lori region.

Ghazarian was gunned down outside his house in Vanadzor, the regional
capital, in still uncertain circumstances.

Prosecutor-General Aghvan told RFE/RL on Tuesday that nobody has
been detained in connection with the killing. He refused to say if
law-enforcement authorities are investigating a possible link between
the killing and Ghazarian’s strained relationship with Vanadzor
Mayor Samvel Darpinian and Henrik Kochinian, the recently fired
Lori governor.

Darpinian and Kochinian are among local government officials figuring
in a embezzlement case brought by the Lori prosecutor’s office last
June. They are suspected of a large-scale theft of equipment from a
local sewage works which allegedly occurred during the 1990s.

According to Arman Darpinian’s mother Narine, the young man was
detained by police in Yerevan and taken to Vanadzor on Thursday. She
said several bullets were found in his car three hours after it was
impounded by the Yerevan police. "I can’t say what law-enforcement
bodies could have done during those three hours," Narine Darpinian
told RFE/RL, suggesting that the incriminating evidence was planted
by police officers.

She also claimed that the case brought against her son is part of
efforts to "politically neutralize" the Vanadzor mayor.

The mayor is a member of the governing Republican Party of Armenia.