The human rights ombudsman’s adviser failed his probationary period

The FSB Directorate for Moscow and the Moscow Region has completed its investigation and transferred the criminal case against Arbak Khachatryan, an adviser to Russia’s human rights ombudsman, to the capital’s Golovinsky Court. He is accused of organizing the smuggling of approximately $120,000, which, according to the security services’ account, was intended to finance the election headquarters of Armenian presidential candidate Artashes Geghamyan. Khachatryan is also accused of fraud. The defendant himself denies guilt, believing that political motives are hidden behind the guise of fighting crime.

Arbak Khachatryan is well known in Armenia. His political career began after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was an adviser to the first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, and oversaw the so-called “Karabakh direction.” It was Khachatryan who, in 1992, helped secure the release of 13 Armenian police officers during the infamous Operation Ring. He dealt with supplies and negotiations. After Armenia’s current president, Robert Kocharyan, came to power, Khachatryan moved to Moscow and obtained Russian citizenship. He was part of a delegation that visited Saddam Hussein, now the former president of Iraq, and even received a personalized watch as a gift from the Iraqi leader.

In 2002, he was appointed adviser to the Russian Federation’s human rights ombudsman. He soon headed a Russian delegation that traveled to Paris on an official visit for talks with Oleg Mironov’s French counterpart.

Khachatryan’s new superiors appreciated his service, and shortly after his return to Moscow, the human rights ombudsman’s office sent Vladimir Putin an official recommendation that Khachatryan be awarded the class rank of State Councillor of the Russian Federation, First Class. A few days later, in early February 2003, Khachatryan was arrested. Investigators accused him of organizing currency smuggling as part of a group that he himself had organized.

On February 5, 2003, before the departure of the Moscow–Yerevan flight, Russian citizen Yuri Ryabtsev, Khachatryan’s family doctor and friend, was detained in the waiting lounge at Sheremetyevo Airport. When customs officers searched his luggage, they found $118,900 that had not been declared. Twelve bundles of hundred-dollar bills, one of which was torn, were wrapped in a paper band from a Czech bank.

Investigators established fairly quickly who had handed Ryabtsev the money and even what it was intended for, although he had not mentioned Khachatryan’s surname.

According to the investigation’s findings, the funds were intended for a PR campaign for a supporter of the opposition to Armenia’s incumbent president Robert Kocharyan, a presidential candidate…