INSTITUTION OF CRIMINAL CASE TOWARDS US HAS GOAL TO KEEP OPPOSITION
FIELD IN TERROR, VAHAN SHIRKHANIAN SAYS
YEREVAN, MAY 7, NOYAN TAPAN. Institution of ungrounded criminal case
towards former RA Foreign Minister Alexander Arzumanian and towards
him has the goal to persecute opposition forces and to "keep them in
terror" in the preelection period. Former RA Deputy Defence Minister
Vahan Shirkhanian said on May 7 in his interview to Noyan Tapan
correspondent.
Commenting upon the statement of National Security Service that
allegedly he and A. Arzumanian being in Moscow on April 24-26 "reached
an agreemet with RF citizen Levon Marcos, to organize with their help
moving to Armenia and legalization of sums having doubtful origin,"
V. Shirkhanian said that in the above mentioned period he indeed was
in Moscow. He met with his friends there, whom he asked for money for
organizing his daughter’s coming wedding and covering the expenditures
of Yerevan’s Shanghai Club. "I respect L. Marcos very much, but I have
not received any money from him," the former Deputy Minister said.
The same day in the interview to journalists A. Arzumanian qualified
the incident "as a political order." "I have spent my whole life in
Armenia, I have nothing to conceal, I have been never engaged in
economic activity and I consider the incident and the accusations
brought to us as absurd," he stated. In the words of the former
Foreign Minister, the current regime, which tries to reproduce himself
by all means and plans to commit unprecedented electoral
falsifications for that purpose, is already trying to create an
atmosphere of fear in the country. As A. Arzumanian affirmed, after
the elections the authorities will strengthen the acts of violence for
even more. "They will not manage to do anything, they cannot reduce us
to silence, we will struggle till the end, we call for pan-national
anger," A. Arzumanian stated.