Armenia has refused a petition filed by Avtandil Martiashvili, the Georgian citizen sentenced to 17 years by an Armenian court for driving a truck in which 850 kilos of heroin were seized in 2014 at the Meghri customs house, requesting that he be extradited to Georgia.

Armenian Deputy Justice Minister Vigen Kocharyan,in his response to Martiashvili, stated that the petition had been reviewed but that extradition wasn’t considered appropriate at this time since a new criminal case in  Armenia’s largest drug bust to date was being examined.

Kocharyan failed to provide specifics.