YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Former President Serzh Sargsyan’s security official, former first deputy direction of the state protection service (under the NSS) Vachagan Ghazaryan has been arrested, Special Investigative Service spokesperson Marina Ohanjanyan told ARMENPRESS.

The court of cassation has approved the complaint of the prosecutor general’s deputy on upholding the first instance court’s ruling on remanding into custody Vachagan Ghazaryan and overruling the previous bail decision.

Ghazaryan, a former top security official, will be placed under arrest again.

Former security official Vachagan Ghazaryan, the head of ex-President Serzh Sargsyan’s security detail, was released from pre-trial detention on a 1,000,000,000 dram (roughly 2,1 million dollars) bail earlier in July.

Ghazaryan was placed under pre-trial detention for two-months. But the former security official appealed the verdict to a higher court, which in turn granted bail.

The court had set the bail for his release earlier on July 20.

Ghazaryan served as first deputy director of the state protection service under the NSS until 2018 May 17. While in office, he was in charge of the security detail of then President Serzh Sargsyan.

Vachagan Ghazaryan was detained by National Security Service (NSS) agents on June 25 and placed under arrest the same day. Two days later he was charged for illicit enrichment and false asset declaration. He was remanded in custody pending trial on June 28.

Ghazaryan carried about half a million dollars in cash on him at the time of his arrest. He claimed that he withdrew the money from a bank with the purpose of returning it to the real owner of the money, without mentioning a name. Another 50,000 dollars was discovered in his car. The National Security Service said it had intelligence reports that Ghazaryan was planning to withdraw an additional 3,000,000 dollars from his and his wife’s bank accounts.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan