On 2 May, the Anti-Corruption Court continued the judicial investigation in the case of confiscation of properties and funds of alleged illicit origin of former NA Deputy, 71-year-old Mher Sedrakyan and his family. The presiding judge is Karapet Badalyan.

The Department for Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin of Prosecutor General’s Office filed a request to confiscate property of illicit origin worth about 11 billion AMD. In particular:  

• In the city of Yerevan: 21 real estates, average market value of one real estate, in Kotayk region: one real estate, one vehicle, and in case of impossibility, their average market value, which is more than 2.3 billion AMD in total (some properties have not yet been evaluated) .
• Participation in eight legal entities and the right to claim one loan.
• More than 8.6 billion AMD are also subject to confiscation as the sum of the balance of illicit income and AMD transferred to bona fide third parties, which are not justified by legal income.

According to Iravaban.net , during the session, it was decided to exhaust the issues regarding the basis and subject of the lawsuit, after which to discuss the petitions presented by the parties.

Aleksan Khachatryan, the representative of the defendants, addressing the plaintiff, stated that they have not heard any factual basis about which crime or crimes the alleged illicit properties were acquired. He asked to state whether there are such grounds in the submitted claim or not and whether they correspond to the positions expressed by the decisions of the ECHR.

Hamlet Harutyunyan, the Prosecutor of the Department for Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin, noted that in terms of confiscation of allegedly illicit property, different models operate in different countries. In this case, the Law On Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin adopted in RA “does not require” a direct or indirect connection between the criminal act and the property subject to confiscation.

The next question of the representatives of the respondents referred to the data received from the competent authority, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, according to which Mher Sedrakyan worked since 1974. Aleksan Khachatryan asked to clarify why the competent authority considered the balance of the Sedrakyan’s funds to be zero as of January 1995.

The prosecutor stated that they took into account the data that were available. “The data of the 70s and 80s cannot be considered due to the devaluation of the ruble in 1992. It is about taking a certain starting point here. The data that became known to us, which made it possible to make a combination of a person’s incomes, expenses, and property acquisitions, were from the year in which the calculation was carried out.”

Lawyer Varazdat Badalyan insisted that , there was a clear figurein Soviet Armenia, a minimum, which was not used as the basis of the calculation.

Further Hamlet Harutyunyan presented the motion to partially cancel the security measure of the claim. The prosecutor petitioned to lift the ban on actions related to the management of real estate on Cousto Street. “Further examination of the materials revealed that the said real estate belongs to Mher Vardan Sedrakyan by right of ownership, and not to Mher Davit Sedrakyan, who is the defendant in the case. The latter is the nephew of Mher Davti Sedrakyan.”

Varazdat Badalyan mentioned that this is the unique petition presented by the plaintiff, with which they completely agree. The court announced that it will make a decision on the petition in a separate act.

Then, the respondent filed a motion. It referred to the application of the statute of limitations.

Details in the video.