On 17 May, the Anti-Corruption Civil Court examined the claim of the General Prosecutor’s Office regarding confiscation of property and funds of allegedly illicit origin from Lyova Sargsyan, the brother of the 3rd President of the Republic of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, and Lyova Sargsyan’s wife, Armine Harutyunyan.
The Prosecutor’s Office believes that the amount equivalent to 9 million 408 thousand US USD is subject to confiscation from Lyova Sargsyan and his family members, of which only the amount of the deposit in the commercial bank is 6 million 800 thousand USD. According to the lawsuit, 9 acquisitions of real estate, 2 acquisitions of movable assets, as well as participations in 3 organizations were not justified with legal income. As for Lyova Sargsyan, the Prosecutor’s Office has considered illicit one real estate, a car, the amount of a deposit in a commercial bank – 3 million 500 thousand USD.
Iravaban.net reports that during today’s court session, the representative of the defendants, Vahagn Grigoryan, presented a position regarding the petition he submitted on 5 May regarding the application of the statute of limitation.
The lawyer believes that the statute of limitation is applicable to the lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor’s Office, because the competent body missed the deadline for conducting an investigation against Lyova Sargsyan.
“The claim is considered submitted not from the moment when a document bearing the title “lawsuit” or “claim” is presented to the court, but when a document containing the subject and basis of the claim is presented to the court in terms of content,” he said.
According to Vahagn Grigoryan, due to the fact that the claim has been supplemented with a new demand or a factual basis, the deadline for submitting the claim should be considered the day of submitting the corresponding supplement to the court.
“The motion to change the subject matter of the lawsuit in this case is dated 20 December, 2022, which means that the lawsuit with its final subject matter and basis was filed at that time. In other words, in this case, the period between the moment of making the decision to start the investigation and the moment of submitting the claim to the court exceeded 2 years”, the lawyer stated in the court.
The court will announce the decision on 25 May.
Details in the video.
