The charges against Andranik Tevanyan, leader of the opposition Mother Armenia party, who is accused of “high treason” and “disclosure of state secrets,” have been revised.
Lawyer Aram Orbelyan said several key episodes had been removed from the indictment. In particular, according to the lawyer, the indictment sent to court after the completion of the preliminary investigation no longer contains an earlier claim by the Investigative Committee that Tevanyan had been recruited by foreign intelligence services during 2024. Orbelyan said the charges now refer to a non-governmental organization instead of intelligence services, RFE/RL reports.
“When we look at the charges, the references to intelligence services or a state body are no longer there; they have been removed. Now, the contacts were with a representative of a non-governmental organization. That is why I say that these charges themselves have changed so drastically from the beginning until now… This is also very important because those initial wiretaps, the alleged surveillance and the procedures were carried out based on that logic, and requests for court authorization were always based on the premise of recruitment by foreign intelligence services. Now all of that is being removed…” Orbelyan said.
Another episode has also been removed from Tevanyan’s indictment. According to Aram Orbelyan, the charges no longer contain the allegation that Tevanyan allegedly provided information constituting a state secret to a representative of foreign intelligence services in exchange for $622,000.
According to the lawyer, the most absurd aspect is that at the beginning of the preliminary investigation, investigators took the $622,000 figure from a grant budget estimate. At the time, Tevanyan was a civil society representative and had prepared budgets for various grant programs, meaning the funds had merely been planned and, according to Aram Orbelyan, were never received.
The articles under which criminal proceedings were initiated in Tevanyan’s case have also changed. While the Investigative Committee said in May that proceedings had been launched on suspicion of treason and espionage, the espionage charge has now been replaced by an article concerning disclosure of state secrets.
