On 14 February the Anti-Corruption Court continued the examination of the lawsuit filed by the Department for Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin of the General Prosecutor’s Office against the 13th Prime Minister of RA Hovik Abrahamyan and his related persons, with the demand for the confiscation of property of alleged illicit origin. The session is chaired by Judge Karapet Badalyan.

According to Iravaban.net, the session began with the publication of the position of Tigran Yenokyan, the Deputy Head of the Department for Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin.

It should be noted that during the previous session, the representative of Hovik Abrahamyan’s son, Argam Abrahamyan, petitioned to partially eliminate the means of securing the claim applied by the court in 2022. The prosecutor noted that the presented petition was groundless.

Tigran Enokyan emphasized once again: The properties registered in the name of Argam Abrahamyan were considered, not his, but Hovik Abrahamyan’s. A motion has been filed to confiscate them in full; therefore, the security measure applied to those properties should also be complete.

The Presiding Judge Karapet Badalyan mentioned that the decision on the petition will be published in the form of a separate judicial act.

Further, the lawyers involved in the case submitted 3 motions to apply an accelerated trial. The first motion was presented by Hovik Abrahamyan’s representative Varazdat Asatryan.

The Prosecutor’s Office demands to confiscate from the former prime minister about 52.6 million drams, as well as 18 billion 697 million 377 thousand drams. The basis of the monetary claims is the fact of transformation or alienation of the property of alleged illicit origin, and the other part is based on the fact of impossibility of transfer or identification to the bona fide acquirer.

“We ask to separate the above-mentioned demand from the claim and apply an accelerated trial in that regard,” Asatryan said.

In this refard Tigran Yenokyan again said that the submitted petition is groundless. The court rejected it because it is not obvious whether the claim is valid or not, in which case the accelerated trial is applied.

The 2nd and 3rd petitions also referred to the accelerated trial. They were rejected as well.

The next session will take place on 6 March, 2024.

Details in the videos.