Yerevan court weighs extending opposition leader's detention

A court in Yerevan has begun closed-door proceedings to consider a prosecution request to extend the pretrial detention of businessman and Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukyan.

The Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction is reviewing the motion submitted by prosecutors, with the court’s decision still pending.

No ruling has been announced so far.

Gagik Tsarukyan, a billionaire businessman and former world arm wrestling champion, was arrested on July 6 on suspicion of fraudulently importing $21 million worth of goods from Iran.

The 69-year-old leader of the Prosperous Armenia party has been placed in detention for two months while awaiting trial on the charges, which he rejects as politically motivated.

The arrest follows a swift political downfall for Tsarukyan's Prosperous Armenia Party, a dominant legislative force for nearly two decades. In last month's parliamentary elections, the party fell just a few hundred votes short of the 4 percent threshold required to enter parliament. Hours after the defeat, the government slammed Tsarukyan with a travel ban. He challenged the election results, but Armenia’s Constitutional Court rejected the appeal on July 4—just two days before the raids began.

By Vafa Guliyeva