Today, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held an extraordinary Cabinet meeting.

To begin with, Prime Minister Pashinyan stated as follows: “You may be aware of the events that took place over the past couple of days. MP Manvel Grigoryan’s house and belongings were subjected to searches. Without violating the presumption of innocence, I would like to state that we are perhaps dealing with the largest-scale corruption chain in the history of the Third Republic. This is distinguished by the fact that the findings were literally shocking for the Armenian public.

The case has been handed over to the Special Investigative Service, and I hope that it will subject to a due diligence investigation, and the Office of Prosecutor General will guarantee the proper level of investigation.

I must say that the Armenian society and I do not see any obstacle to ensuring that all participants in this case be exposed and called to account regardless of their titles, social standings and other factors. This case must be disclosed to the end.”

Coming to the agenda, the Government decided to ask the National Assembly Speaker to convene an extraordinary National Assembly sitting on June 19, at 11:00, with a view to discussing the Prosecutor-General’s petition on stripping MP Manvel Grigoryan of parliamentary immunity and instituting criminal proceedings against him. In view of the above, the Government made changes to the relevant decision passed on June 8, 2018, that will allow the National Assembly to start work on June 19 by discussing the aforementioned petition of the Prosecutor-General.

“According to Article 41 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister must have the NA Speaker’s verbal consent on calling an extraordinary sitting earlier than the proposed five-day period. I wish to inform you that I have talked to Mr. Babloyan on the matter and obtained his consent. Thus, all the procedures have been observed in this case,” Nikol Pashinian underscored.