Court arrests David Tonoyan

David Tonoyan, a former head of the Armenian Ministry of Defence (MoD) was arrested for two months under an embezzlement case. Tonoyan refuses to plead guilty; his defence intends to appeal against the arrest at the Court of Appeal.

David Tonoyan was detained on suspicion of embezzling about USD 4.7 million when supplying weapons; David Galstyan, the head of the supplier company, was detained within the same case, the National Security Service (NSS) of Armenia reported on September 30.

The General Jurisdiction Court of Yerevan has granted the motion of the NSS to arrest David Tonoyan, a former Defence Minister. He was arrested for two months, his lawyer Sergey Ovannisyan told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

David Tonoyan refuses to plead guilty. His defence intends to appeal the court ruling at the appellate instance, Mr Ovannisyan has noted. "The case has to do with official state secrets. Therefore, I cannot disclose the case details, but I assure you that there are facts in the case materials that immediately refute any Tonoyan's guilt," the advocate has stressed.

On November 20, 2020, David Tonoyan was fired by Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia. After his resignation from the post of the head of the MoD, David Tonoyan stated that he was ready to bear his share of responsibility for the outcomes of the last autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 30, 2021 at 09:40 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.