Wednesday, May 13 2020 15:01

ArmInfo.Andranik Kocharyan, MP from the "My Step" faction, head of the parliamentary Standing Committee on Defense and Security, said that the brother-in-law of Armenia's Prime Minister Hrachya Hakobyan is not connected with the case of  cigarette smuggling.

To recall, on April 29, the  Boylernaya channel on Telegram   reported, that an attempt was made to smuggle a batch of Armenian  cigarettes of various brands with a tonnage of 40 tons or 2700 boxes  through Krasnodar. According to the report, the market value of the  cargo is more than 300 million rubles. <The plane that flew from  Yerevan with stops in Krasnodar and then in  Dushanbe, was heading to  Afghanistan>, the source said. Wanted son-in-law of the third  president of Armenia Mikael Minasyan immediately accused the family  of Prime Minister Pashinyan  of smuggling.  During the briefing,  Kocharyan noted that Hakobyan  in no way  involved in these schemes,  but  son-in-law of third President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, Mikael  Minasyan, might as well have. "This issue should be studied, however,  it is so obvious that oligarchs who, under the previous government,  did not bear any punishment for their actions, can stand behind such  actions," the MP emphasized.  The head of the Committee on Defense  and Security, also noted that it should find out who exactly in  Armenia is connected in one way or another with the cigarette  business. <Thus, Vardan Harutyunyan, the former head of the State  Revenue Committee, may come to our minds. If you  constantly delve  into this topic, you can find out a lot of interesting things.  Armenian law enforcers should tackle this issue and stop all  speculations on this subject>, Kocharian noted.

The MP also emphasized that the law enforcement bodies of Armenia  have not yet received information on smuggled cargo from their  Russian colleagues.