The Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) petitioned a court to remand Abrahamian in pre-trial custody on charges of money laundering, abuse of power and illegal entrepreneurship. A spokeswoman for the law-enforcement agency declined to give details of the accusations.
It was thus not immediately clear whether they are part of the same criminal case that was opened against Abrahamian in September 2018 four months after Nikol Pashinian’s rise to power. The former premier was charged at the time with abuse of power and illegal entrepreneurial activity.
The charges denied by him stemmed from allegations by a businessman that in 2008 Abrahamian forced him to give up a majority stake in his sand quarry located in the southern Ararat province. Abrahamian was the chief of then President Serzh Sarkisian’s staff at the time.
The ACC added a money laundering charge to the case in 2023. It has yet to explain why Abrahamian has still not gone on trial.
In 2022, prosecutors asked a court to confiscate 21 billion drams ($54 million) in cash and 59 properties belonging to Abrahamian or his family, saying that these assets were acquired illegally. The assets were frozen pending a court ruling. Nevertheless, Abrahamian mysteriously managed to sell one of those properties, a luxury house in Yerevan, to a wealthy businessman close to Pashinian’s administration.
Abrahamian, 66, is a native of Ararat who developed extensive business interests there before holding senior state positions in Yerevan. He fell out with Serzh Sarkisian shortly after being sacked as prime minister in 2016. He has kept a low profile since then.