Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Committee has asked a court in Yerevan to allow the arrest of Deputy Yerevan Mayor Gevorg Simonyan and the head of the Department of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis at the National Center of Pulmonology over misuse of government funds provided to the ministry in 2020 for the fight against Covid-19.

The court is yet to rule on the arrest motions filed by the Anti-Corruption Committee, its spokeswoman Marina Ohanjanyan told Panorama.am on Saturday.

Medline Clinic Director Babken Shaumyan has already been placed under arrest as part of a probe into the case, she said.

Simonyan served as deputy health minister in 2020-2022.

The health officials and the hospital director are accused of embezzling 119 million drams out of more than 26 billion drams in emergency funding allocated by the government following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Eight others were also involved in the scam, the Anti-Corruption Committee said.

Arsen Torosyan was Armenia’s health minister at the time.