Armenian Minister’s Son Could’ve Been Sentenced to Death in Iran: Newspaper

Iranian border guards arrested RA Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Yuri Vardanyan’s son at the Armenia-Iran border on suspicion of drug trafficking, according to local daily Zhoghovurd’s sources. Seeing that he is a citizen of Armenia and the son of a high-ranking official, Iranian law enforcement officials, in order to avoid an unnecessary row, immediately sent him back to Armenia, informing Armenian border guards of the incident and calling for David Vardanyan’s arrest.

The Armenian newspaper reports that the Iranians “behaved this way” because in their country those charged with drug possession get the death sentence, and so that they don’t sentence a citizen of Armenia to death, they prefered to hand over the minister’s son to the Armenian authorities.