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Head of the Homeland Development Fund office, lawyer Arsen Babayan, a former deputy chief of the Armenian parliament staff, seeks to get political, legal and moral assessments on the allegations of espionage concerning former Director of the National Security Service (NSS) Artur Vanetsyan.

Babayan on Friday visited the Prosecutor’s Office to have the law enforcement body check the circumstances of the statement made by MP Hrachya Hakobyan which “contains judgments about an evident crime” and give it a criminal and legal assessment. However, as expected, the doors of the building were closed.

"Today is a a non-working day, but the Prosecutor's Office is a controlled area, with police officers always deployed inside and outside the building, and the Prosecutor's Office has never been closed," he told reports outside the building, adding that he had notified the office of his visit in advance.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Hakobyan, who is Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s brother-in-law, wondered whether Vanetsyan has been dismissed “because of having been recruited by foreign intelligence services.”

Arsen Babayan believes Nikol Pashinyan is behind the statement, as ‘it has been the case with the other statements” on Artur Vanetsyan.

“But the important thing is Hrachya Hakobyan makes an absurd statement, using some tricks to put it in a way to make it impossible to bring him to responsibility for defamation. They have supposed that the society will think if Pashinyan's family member talks about such things, he is informed on them. But I reiterate that the statement is nonsense, typical to the yellow press,” Babayan said.

The lawyer stressed the remarks damage the honor and dignity of the former NSS director and an officer.

“A political, legal and moral assessment must be made, because any effort to question an officer's dignity and devotion to his homeland and state is devoid of any moral rule. I expect a legal assessment from the Prosecutor's Office today,” he said, adding political assessments should be made both by the authorities and opposition forces, while moral assessments are made by the society.