Today, the proceeding on the scandalous Offshore Case continued in the First Instance Court of Erebuni and Nubarashen administrative districts. The case is currently at the stage of examination of evidence.
The defender of the jeweler Ashot Sukiasyan, the defendant in this case, presented citations from Paylak Hakobyan’s pre-trial testimony claiming that actually there was civil relationship between his client and currently bankrupt Paylak Hayrapetyan. Namely, they started a business together and Ashot Sukiasyan did not perform any actions of abuse of trust or obtaining property by fraud.
Particularly, the testimony states that Ashot Sukiasyan repaid Paylak Hakobyan’s debt (763 thousand USD) to HSBC Bank from his own funds. Later, Paylak Hakobyan registered his 1.5 ha land in Ashot Sukiasyan’s name. Notably, Paylak Hakobyan said that the payment was made from the funds of the loan reciuved from the bank for business.
Shaliko Hakobyan, the representer of suspect’s interests answered that a great number of documents need to be prepared for starting a business, including information about the type of business, the plans the investments from each of the parties. Whereas there is no document in this case which indicates a joint business.
It is worth mentioning that two proceedings on this case were being postponed because of the absence of the prosecutor. On today’s proceeding with the court under the presiding Judge Vardan Grigoryan, tried to find out the reason of absence. Prosecutor David Veqilyan informed that he had been appointed to the position of prosecutor in Aragatsotn marz and the issue of of his further involvement in the case was under the discussion. It was decided that he would be involved by this case.
