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A Yerevan court has ordered the pre-trial detention of Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan, Chancellor of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin - the governing body of the Armenian Apostolic Church, following his arrest, the clergyman’s lawyer announced on Friday.
The Archbishop was arrested on Thursday on drug-related charges that he denies and that are unrelated to other allegations involving an intimate video.
Judge Masis Melkonyan approved the investigator’s motion to remand him into custody for two months pending trial.
The Archbishop is accused of planting narcotics, through an accomplice, in the bag of a demonstrator in 2018 who was protesting against Catholicos Karekin II, allegedly in an effort to frame the protester.
He is charged under Article 393, Part 2, Points 1 and 4 of Armenia’s Criminal Code, which covers the illegal distribution of narcotics by a group acting in prior agreement, in a public place.