Court in Armenia arrests son of ex-CSTO sec-gen Khachaturov

YEREVAN. March 16 (Interfax) – The Court of Appeals in Yerevan has granted a motion of the Prosecutor General’s Office seeking to arrest Maj. Gen. Grigory Khachaturov, a former commander of the Armenian Armed Forces’ Third Army Corps and son of former Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Secretary General Yury Khachaturov.

Khachaturov has been arrested for two months, the court told reporters.

The first instance court dismissed a motion of the Prosecutor General’s Office on his arrest and released him in February.

According to the Armenian Prosecutor General’s Office, Khachaturov has been detained in connection with a criminal case on legalization of unlawfully acquired real estate and money laundering, investigated by the Armenian National Security Service’s investigative department.

Earlier, the Armenian parliament granted a motion by Armenian Prosecutor General Anna Vardapetyan for opening a criminal case and depriving Seyran Ohanyan, head of the largest opposition faction Armenia and former Armenian defense minister, of parliamentary immunity.

He is accused of illegal sales of land of military units. While presenting the motion, Vardapetyan said that a number of land plots of non-functioning military units in the Ararat district and Yerevan and their real properties were illegally alienated at a discounted price in 2005 and 2009. The land plots were later sold or pawned with banks, and the profits were embezzled.

According to the bill of indictment, one of the plots was sold to Grigory Khachaturov in 2005.

The prosecutor general estimated the damage done to Armenia at approximately 5.9 billion drams ($14.9 million).