Friday, March 24 2017 16:58

ArmInfo.The political forces of Armenia either do not want to interfere in the course of the case on charges of ex-Defense Minister of Artsakh Samvel Babayan in the  illegal importation of the Igla missile, or consider it to be  exclusively political.

In particular, the leader of the "Armenian National Movement" and the  candidate for deputy from the "Tsarukyan" bloc Ararat Zurabyan  considered such loud arrests in the pre-electoral period to be  strange.  However, in his opinion, the NSS's statements that Babayan  ordered the import of an anti-aircraft missile system are not  serious, since he does not understand how he could use it. The  politician also does not see any connection of this arrest with the  program proposed by the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-  Petrosyan for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict through  territorial concessions.

In his turn, the supporter of the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian bloc Azat  Arshakyan stated that Babayan was eliminated, as the authorities  intend to implement the Ter-Petrosyan plan and cede the territories.  "The authorities know how cruel he is in this matter, and have  eliminated him", he stressed.

Member of the bloc "Free Democrats" Stepan Safaryan noted that before  all recent elections there were loud arrests and detentions. "It's  strange not only this, but also the fact that an information  background was provided before the detention, and some media informed  about it beforehand," the politician stressed, without giving any  other estimates.

The representative of the "Elk" bloc, Alen Simonyan, did not want to  comment on this matter anyway, since he did not consider it right to  politicize this issue.

Babayan's arrest was carried out in the framework of the case of  illegal importation of the Igla MANPADS from Georgia to Armenia. The  press service of the National Security Service stated that within the  framework of this case, 3 people were arrested and Babayan. As a  result of operational-search activities, reliable data was obtained  that persons engaged in the delivery and acquisition of components of  the anti-aircraft missile system acted at the behest and order of  Babayan. Bloc Oganyan-Raffi-Oskanian, whose supporter he is, called  the given arrest a political persecution and called on international  organizations, diplomatic missions to keep this pre-election incident  at the center of attention.