The Investigative Committee of Armenia has denied allegations that the audio recording of Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, leader of the Sacred Struggle movement, was edited. The statement was posted on Facebook by the committee’s spokesperson, Kima Avdalyan.

Referring to Article 8 of the Armenian Law on Mass Media, the Investigative Committee has officially demanded a retraction from the editorial board of the Hraparak daily.

According to the committee, some media outlets have taken advantage of the fact that only fragments of conversations related to the case—specifically, discussions among representatives of the Sacred Struggle movement regarding alleged preparations for terrorist activities and attempts to seize power—have been made public. “Since the initial publication, these outlets have circulated unfounded claims suggesting that the conversations were edited, sentences were artificially constructed by combining words, the dialogue was taken out of context, or that the entire recording was generated using artificial intelligence,” the Committee said.

In particular, Hraparak newspaper claimed in its July 4 morning report at 8:15 a.m. that the comment by Bagrat Srbazan about "shooting under the walls" referred to drug dealers. The Investigative Committee officially said that the recorded conversation “contains no reference to drugs or individuals involved in drug trafficking.”

The committee further urged all parties to uphold professional ethics and refrain from disseminating false or politically motivated misinformation. It warned against spreading unverified or deliberately misleading claims about the evidence in the ongoing criminal case, noting that during judicial proceedings, all parties will have the opportunity to review the full evidence, including the contested recordings.

Meanwhile, Hovhannes Khudoyan, a representative of Archbishop Bagrat's legal team, has issued a statement urging law enforcement to release the complete, unedited audio recordings.

On the night of June 25–26, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan was arrested for two months and transferred to the Yerevan-Kentron penitentiary, which operates under the National Security Service.