Your trusted source

‘Hraparak’ paper says citing its sources that ex-deputy defense minister of Armenia Vahan Shirkhanyan was not an organizer of the criminal association recently detained by the National Security Service (NSS). Shirkhanyan only cooperated with the gang as an expert by giving advice. However, there are also other well-known people linked to the gang some way or the other. 

“The group has five sub-groups that were planning to seize the presidential residence, the government, the parliament, Constitutional Court, and the TV tower. The main operation was scheduled for December 1. They intended to blow up the plane of the Armenian president who was to fly to France on that day. The operation was well-organized, but the gang leader Arthur Vardanyan made a mistake – he met with a man he should not have met, as a result of which Vardanyan was spotted by NSS. Our sources did not say who the man was,” the paper writes.