Armenia’s Nature Protection Ministry Staff Arrested on Bribery Charges

15:30 – 05.03.10

Arsen Petrosyan, the Deputy Chief of the Armenian State Inspectorate
on Nature Protection, has recently been caught in a case on corruption
and arrested together with his chief Tigran Grigoryan.

In a reference to this case, head of the General Department of Fight
against Organized Crime of RA Police Hunan Poghosyan said at a press
conference today that he had not, in recent months, come across
stronger evidence for cases of corruption than this one.

`I don’t think I have recently seen a more well-founded case on
corruption than this one,’ said Poghosyan.

According to him, preliminary interrogation of Arsen Petrosyan has
revealed that he had been involved in another corruption in the same
case.

Poghosyan also confirmed the rumors that Tigran Grigoryan, the former
Chief of Armenian State Inspectorate on Nature Protection, used to be
a police officer.

Both Tigran Grigoryan’s and Arsen Petrosyan’s cases have already been
brought to court.

In 2009, Petrosyan inspected basalt and gypsiferous clay subsoil
operated by `Delta-Fragment’ Ltd. in Yerevan on assignment for the
Minister of Nature Protection, reports Arka news agency.

For not including the detected violations in the protocol and
reduction of penalty size, Petrosyan required 400,000 AMD from Vardan
Aslanyan, director of `Delta-Fragment’ Ltd., and received the bribe on
December 16, 2009.

Tert.am