On 6 August, Armenia’s Special Investigative Service (SIS) arrested Yerevan’s former Mayor and the country's former head of Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) Robert Nazaryan on suspicion of giving privileged treatment to a company allegedly linked to Mikael Minasyan, former President Serzh Sargsyan’s fugitive son-in-law, reported the Armenian Radio Free Europe. 

The SIS said that Nazaryan was taken into custody as part of a criminal investigation into DzoraHEK, a major hydroelectric plant privatized in 2010. It stated that in 2011 Nazarian abused his position to have the PSRC include DzoraHEK on a list of small hydroelectric facilities allowed to sell electricity to the national power grid at a much higher price. As a result, the plant made more than 7 billion drams ($14.5 million) in extra profits over the next eight years, the law-enforcement agency added in a statement. 

The statement implied that DzoraHEK received the privileged treatment because it was owned at the time by “individuals linked to former President Serzh Sargsyan’s son-in-law Mikael Minasyan.”

The deputy chairman of Sargsyan’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) Armen Ashotyan alleged, meanwhile, that the SIS arrested Nazaryan in a bid to force him to give “false” incriminating testimony against the ex-president.

The DzoraHEK plant was handed over to the Armenia Defence Ministry in 2001, one year after Serzh Sargsyan was appointed as defence minister. The latter held the post until 2007 and went on to become Armenia’s president in 2008. In 2010, Sargsyan’s government decided to sell the hydroelectric plant, located in the northern Lori province, to a private company, Dzoraget Hydro, for 3.6 billion drams ($7.5 million). In May 2019, prosecutors said that DzoraHEK was worth an estimated 8 billion drams ($16.8 million). Earlier this year, they indicted Seyran Ohanyan, Armenia’s defence minister from 2008 to 2016, over the 26-megawatt facility’s privatisation, saying that it caused “substantial damage” to the state. In 2016, DzoraHEK was sold to another private company reportedly owned by Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan.

Ohanyan denied any responsibility for the deal, saying that it was negotiated by the Armenian Energy Ministry and approved by the former government.

In the meantime, the Russian government extradited the Armenian businessman and former parliamentarian Levon Sargsyan who was accused in October 2018 of masterminding a 2008 robbery at the Yerevan house of Armen Avetisyan, the former chief of the Armenian customs service. The National Security Service claimed that he hired an armed gang to break into the house and steal cash and precious items because of his personal feud with Avetisyan.