By Lucy Papachristou
(Reuters) -Authorities in Armenia indicted two senior politicians from a pro-Russian opposition coalition for corruption-related crimes on Tuesday, as prosecutors prepared to file charges against another MP.
Opposition groups have decried the criminal investigation against the politicians – Seyran Ohanyan, Artsvik Minasyan and Artur Sargsyan – as politically motivated.
The three are members of Armenia Alliance, a parliamentary group led by Robert Kocharyan, who served as the South Caucasus country’s president from 1998 to 2008.
Led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia has moved closer to the West, signalling that it wants to join the European Union and distancing itself from traditional ally Russia.
But Pashinyan, who swept to power during street protests in 2018, has entered into a bitter confrontation in recent months with senior religious figures as well as a top businessman and a former political rival as he faces parliamentary elections next year.
Armenian prosecutors say Ohanyan and Minasyan participated in a scheme to in which the former, then the country’s defence minister, acquired a plot of land belonging to a nature reserve and built a house there. Minasyan, a former environment minister, gave his assent to the sale, investigators say.
Ohanyan, the parliamentary leader for Armenia Alliance, was charged with abuse of power, money laundering, bribery and other crimes on Tuesday, Armenpress state news agency reported. The faction’s secretary, Minasyan, was charged with abuse of power. Both deny wrongdoing.
Prosecutors say the third Armenia Alliance MP, Sargsyan, participated in an attempted coup plot allegedly orchestrated by a prominent Christian cleric last month. The cleric, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, is currently in detention.
Sargsyan has denied involvement, according to Armenpress.
Parliament on Tuesday gave prosecutors a green light to indict Sargsyan, after earlier stripping him and the two others of their parliamentary immunity.
(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Alistair Bell)
