Armenia’s National Assembly convened a special session today to discuss the motions of the Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan to strip MP Manvel Grigoryan of his immunity and keep him in pre-trial detention, on charges of illegal arms possession and embezzlement.

NA Speaker Ara Babloyan announced that Manvel Grigoryan had addressed him a letter, refusing to participate in the session.

Armenian Prosecutor General said that the preliminary investigation of the criminal case confirmed Grigoryan having illegally obtained large quantity of firearms and ammunition and holding them in his private houses and buildings.

The Prosecutor General added that Grigoryan and his family members had started “cleaning” the areas of arms by transporting them to different places since June 5.

However, on June 16, six investigations took place in private houses owned by Grigoryan, as a result of which large quantities of grenades, anti-tank mortars, explosives and more than 17,000 rounds of various caliber ammo were found and confiscated by the NSS. A total of 71,76 million AMD, $80,000, 67,350 euros, and 246,500 Ukrainian hryvnias were also found in the territories belonging to Grigoryan.

According to Davtyan, Armenian Ministry of Defense had provided food, clothing and other items to the Yerkrapah Voluntary Union, headed by Grigoryan, but the items were stolen by Grigoryan and transported to his own areas.

 The Prosecutor General said that according to the preliminary investigation, Grigoryan contacted his son on the day of his arrest and instructed Armen Hakobyan to appear at the place of the investigation and say that the discovered weapons belonged to him, which Hakobyan did thirty minutes later. Thus, the Prosecutor asked the MPs not only to strip of Grigoryan’s immunity to be able to prosecute him, but also to detain him, since otherwise there was a chance that Grigoryan would hinder the process of preliminary investigation.