YEREVAN, JUNE 18, ARMENPRESS. Russian Ambassador to Armenia Sergei Kopyrkin expressed a wish to meet with Vice Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan, the Vice Speaker told reporters today, asked whether the international partners have applied to him over the ongoing processes against Prosperous Armenia party leader Gagik Tsarukyan.

“I am the chair of the Armenia-Russia inter-parliamentary and friendship group. Yesterday I talked to the vice-chairman of Russia’s Federal Assembly and we have not discussed any such issue. The Russian Ambassador to Armenia expressed a wish to meet with me, the meeting didn’t take place yet. As of this moment I do not have any reaction from our remaining partners”, Alen Simonyan said.

The Vice Speaker said he doesn’t think that Armenia’s serious foreign partners will make urgent statements over the criminal case.

On June 16 the Armenian Parliament voted in favor of the Prosecutor General’s motion on stripping MP Gagik Tsarukyan of parliamentary immunity. 87 MPs voted in favor of the motion. The Parliament also approved another motion on depriving Tsarukyan of liberty.

On June 14 leader of the opposition Prosperous Armenia party Gagik Tsarukyan was taken to the National Security Service for questioning. He stayed there until 23:30. Tsarukyan’s supporters organized a rally outside the NSS demanding to stop the actions against the lawmaker.

Earlier the NSS issued a statement according to which a company, that is included Gagik Tsarukyan’s Multi Group Concern, has caused tens of billions of drams in damage to the state.

In another statement, the NSS said it revealed numerous cases on giving bribes to voters by the Prosperous Armenia party members, as well as candidates to vote in favor of the party during the April 2, 2017 parliamentary elections.

On June 16 the National Security Service of Armenia issued another statement announcing about new discoveries about the activity of the Prosperous Armenia party.

According to the information collected by the NSS, during the May 14, 2017 Yerevan City Council elections, state officials persuaded nearly 100-120,000 eligible voters in Armenia, both materially or illegally, to formally move from their actual places of registration and register temporarily in different addresses of Yerevan’ administrative districts in order to include these persons to the voters lists of local self-government bodies, thus providing the necessary number of “in favor” votes during the elections.

In addition, it was also revealed that the members of the Prosperous Armenia political party, founded in 2004, distributed bribes during various elections for voting in favor of their party, candidate in order to receive their desired result.

Criminal case has been launched over the incident.

Based on the preliminary investigation of the criminal case, respective facts were collected according to which Prosperous Armenia party MP, chairwoman of the parliamentary standing committee on human rights and public affairs Naira Zohrabyan repeatedly insulted numerous citizens during her conversations with the supporters when summing up the results of the elections which were held in Armenia after the 2018 Revolution.

It was also revealed that during her talks with the same supporters Naira Zohrabyan also repeatedly accepted the fact that the Prosperous Armenia party managed to receive the necessary number of votes during the previous elections exclusively by distributing bribes to the Armenian citizens.

Reporting by Norayr Shoghikyan; Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan