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Charges have been brought against Armenia's former Chief of Police Vladimir Gasparyan as part of a criminal probe into abuse of power committed by several officials of the Ministry of Defense conducted by the Investigative Committee.

In an official statement on Wednesday, the committee said Gasparyan, being a commander and an official, from June 1997 to October 2010 holding the position of Chief of Military Police, then the position of Armenia’s deputy defense minister till November 2011, and being aware that 3 servicemen of a military unit being registered in the mentioned unit as a military policeman from 2001, 2004 and 2009, accordingly, were not actually serving but doing other jobs – one of them worked as a driver of second President Serzh Sargsyan’s brother Lyova Sargsyan, while the other two – bodyguards of ex-president’s other brother Aleksander Sargsyan – allowed those servicemen to do other jobs by abusing his official power.

Moreover, on December 3, 2010 Gasparyan, serving as Armenia’s Deputy Minister of Defense, extended the service term of one of those servicemen for 5 years.

As a result, during Gasparyan’s tenure a total of 21,691,481 drams were paid to them from the state budget causing the state damage in particularly large amount.

The former police chief has been charged with abuse of power under Article 375 of the country’s Criminal Code. Signature bond has been imposed on him as a measure of restraint.

Preliminary investigation is underway.