In his first public reaction to corruption charges brought against him, Davit Papazian, claimed on Monday that Pashinian has “unacceptably abused the trust of many of us” and is now looking for “scapegoats for his and his government’s shameful mistakes and failures.” In a Facebook post, he accused the premier of having scuttled “some of the projects” devised by the management of the Armenian National Interests Fund (ANIF).
Papazian, who now claims to be based in London, did not elaborate on his claims. He did not respond to online requests for comment on Tuesday.
Pashinian’s government set up ANIF in 2019 and tasked it with attracting foreign investment, promoting Armenian exports and supporting local businesses. It liquidated the fund in August 2024, citing the failure of that mission.
Papazian was charged last month with money laundering, abuse of power and forgery of documents. The Investigative Committee also indicted two other persons as part of its corruption investigation into ANIF.
Pashinian suggested that Papazian began attacking him because of an international arrest warrant issued for him by the law-enforcement agency early this month.
“As soon as he appeared on the international wanted list, he recalled that Nikol Pashinian had done something to shatter all of our hopes,” the premier said scathingly.
Pashinian went on to claim that the ongoing inquiry reflects his government’s transparency and commitment to combatting corruption.
Papazian was prosecuted after an Armenian investigative publication, Hetq.am, revealed that ANIF invested in companies owned or run by cronies of Tigran Avinian, the Yerevan mayor and a senior member of the ruling Civil Contract party.
One of those companies, CFW, was registered in the U.S. state of Delaware in 2023 eight days before securing over 1.5 billion drams ($3.8 million) in investment from ANIF. It is understood to have effectively stopped operating a year later.
CFW was managed by Karine Andreasian, a close friend of Avinian’s wife. Andreasian is now one of the three suspects in the case.
It also emerged that an agribusiness company owned by a school classmate of Avinian received 960 million drams ($2.5 million) in ANIF funding. The mayor headed the fund’s board of directors at the time. He denied any wrongdoing last week. Civil Contract reelected Avinian to its governing board during the party’s weekend congress in Yerevan.
Although Pashinian has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated “systemic” corruption, no new large-scale foreign investment projects have been launched in Armenia during his tenure.