On 4 December, the former Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan was charged by the Special Investigative Service of Armenia (SIS) over an alleged organized embezzlement by a group of officials” of 489 million drams (just over $1 million) in government funds allocated in 2013 for the provision of subsidized diesel fuel to farmers”, reported the Armenian Radio Free Europe. The former Armenian President won't be allowed to leave the country during the investigation.

In a statement, the SIS said that Sargsyan interfered in a government tender for fuel supply to ensure it is won by Flash, a company which has long been one of Armenia’s main fuel importers. Flash is owned by Barsegh Beglaryan, a businessman believed to have had close ties to the Sargsyan. 

The government paid Flash over 1.8 billion drams ($3.8 million) as part of the scheme designed to help tens of thousands of low-income farmers across the country. According to the SIS statement, another private company, Maxhur, was ready to supply the same quantity of diesel fuel at a lower price which would have allowed the government to save 489 million drams.

The SIS said that the government’s failure to pick Maxhur amounted to a deliberate embezzlement of public funds ordered by Sargsyan.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke about the corruption charges against the former president, saying that he doesn’t know more than is written in the SIS’s official statement and the press. He said that his government ordered a stop to the program to subsidize the fuel expenses of low-income farmers, as they saw numerous corruption risks in the program. He also stated that low-income farmers in reality were not benefiting from the program. He added that his government was heavely criticized by their opponents for terminating that program, who claimed the government was ignoring the needs of low-income farmers and villagers. “Now it is evident that this was indeed a corrupted program, and that the government gave the tender not to the company which was suggesting the best price, but to the company which Serzh Sargsyan ordered them to,“ he stated. 

Sargsyan’s political party, the Republican Party of Armenia issued a statement in relation to the charges brought against their leader. “We deem the charge brought against Serzh Sargsyan to be an exclusively flagrant manifestation of political persecution. The aim of this procedure is to silence political opponents on the background of the dangers posing a threat to Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, including in the context of the latest developments in the process of negotiations over the settlement of the conflict. With such brutal actions, the authorities have set the goal to distract the attention of the Armenian people from several other problems that are increasing on a daily basis. The populist and authoritarian regime, which has seized power in Armenia, is fully responsible for this process,“ read the statement.

Sargsyan himself also rejected the charges brought up against him. “This is a fabricated and absurd accusation, and I treat it as a political persecution,” read his Facebook post.

After he resigned from the post of Armenia’s President, Sargsyan did not make any political statements for a year and a half. He began being politically active again two weeks ago when he met with the US ambassador to Armenia Lynn Tracy at the HHK headquarters in Yerevan (Caucasus Watch reported) and speaking against the current Armenian government  at the congress of the European People's Party (EPP) in Croatia (Caucasus Watch reported).