On 19 April, the Anti-Corruption Criminal Court presided over by Judge Tigran Davtyan, continued the Court session in the case of the National Nero of Armenia, former Minister of Emergency Situations Andranik Piloyan and 12 other defendants.

It should be noted that in addition to Andranik Piloyan, Ashot Hakobyan, Vigen Mkrtchyan, Hrachya Yeremyan, Mihrdat Matevosyan, Artur Ohanyan, Ara Yaghjyan, Gor Hambardzumyan, Artak Beibutyan, Tatul Gevorgyan, Tigran Gasparyan, Gagik Poghosyan and Vigen Grigoryan (arrested) were also charged.

According to Iravaban.net, the accused Hrachya Yeremyan was questioned at today’s court session.

According to the materials of the case, Hrachya Yeremyan, the Head of one of the departments of the Ministry, using his official position, informed Andranik Piloyan, who held the position of Minister of Internal Affairs, about his willingness to pay a bribe of 2,000 USD, equivalent to 960,000 drams, in order to hire the relevant person in the ministry. Andranik Piloyan agreed to accept the bribe in the form of a heating boiler and parts necessary for its operation. Yeremyan bought a Baxi boiler worth about 644,000 drams and necessary parts for its operation from one of the shops of the “Ideal” system. The discounted price of the boiler was about 341 thousand AMD. Yeremyan kept all this in his garage in order to pass it to Piloyan.

After some time, Piloyan’s advisor Ashot Hakobyan started the process of moving and installing the heating boiler to the apartment purchased in the name of Andranik Piloyan’s son and daughter. In the process, Hakobyan found out that Hrachya Yeremyan inflated the price of the boilee and informed Piloyan about it, which caused the latter’s anger.

The Minister called Hrachya Yeremyan and scolded him, and further demanded to leave his office. After all this, Yeremyan moved the Baxi boiler to the house of Piloyan’s son and daughter, Ashot Hakobyan took the missing money from Yeremyan and transferred it to Piloyan in different ways.

The accused said that during the preliminary investigation, he was mentally agitated and tense while testifying to the investigator, and added that he was taken into custody unexpectedly because that day was the commemoration of his father’s death. During the preliminary investigation, the accused stated that Andranik Piloyan gave him 800,000 drams to buy a heating boiler for his office, after which he bought the heating boiler from the mentioned store and transported it to his own garage through a courier and kept it there. “It’s true, Andranik Piloyan gave me that money in his office, but not all of it, but part of it, 400 thousand drams, through his driver, Vahan.”

Yeremyan said that in January 2022, he called Ashot Hakobyan, inquiring about the location of the heating boilers. It turned out that the boiler and other parts are Chinese, not Italian. A few days later, he sold the Chinese-made parts to his friend, whose data he presented at the beginning of the investigation. He transferred a total of 300,000 drams to Ashot Hakobyan in order to buy Italian parts, but he also mentioned that he transferred the money in parts.

According to the accused, Andranik did not deceive Piloyan and had no such intention, on the contrary, he felt bad for what happened. He also mentioned that there was no monetary conversation between him and the Minister at all, it was about the evaluation of the quality features of the heating boiler and other parts.

Regarding the conversation between Ashot Hakobyan and Andranik Piloyan, Yeremyan insisted that they not only have nothing to do with the charges brought against him, but also that such conversations did not take place between him and the latter.

In connection with the other episode, the defendant stated that he received the order for the dismantling works in the specified area of ​​the MES state reserves from Piloyan, who instructed him to inform the guards of the area in order to allow the employees who should carry out the dismantling to enter. The accused did not have that authority to supervise the dismantling workers, which was the reason why he did not take measures regarding the dismantled property, because it was not under his control as part of the State Reserves Office.

Regarding the fact that he was included in the commission, he said that his acceptance of the mentioned property did not mean that it belongs to the state reserves.

“Regarding the dismantled property, I also want to inform that Tigran Petrosyan, Deputy Director of the Rescue Service of MES, was given a verbal instruction by Minister Andranik Piloyan to draw up an appropriate report together with Vigen Mkrtchyan on the transformation of the dismantled property, which, according to my information, was not carried out later,” Yeremyan said.

The accused added that the state reserve has never had accounting and could not have, because it is also subordinate to the Ministry. At the end of the questioning, Hrachya Yeremyan said that he would exercise his right to remain silent and did not want to answer other questions.

The prosecutor mentioned that there are inaccuracies related to the episode of giving money between the interrogation that took place during the preliminary investigation and this interrogation. He said that the interrogations conducted during the preliminary investigation are not credible. “I submit this petition so that the court has the opportunity to evaluate the conflicting testimonies and, ultimately, make a conclusion whether Hrachya Yeremyan’s testimonies are credible or not.”

Hrachya Yeremyan’s defense attorney stated that even if they publish the pre-trial testimony, nevertheless Hrachya Yeremyan had clarified that contradiction, but if there is any other contradiction, they can publish it.

Andranik Piloyan’s defense attorney stated regarding the publication of the preliminary interrogation. “The publication of the testimony must be strictly specific and in accordance with the strict procedural rule, in particular, whether there are significant contradictions or not, and if so, whether these contradictions are evaluated from the point of view of the justification of the accusation or not.”

After hearing the positions of the parties, the Court, stated that no such arguments were presented that could confirm that there are significant contradictions between the testimonies, so there is no need to publish the testimonies.

Ashot Hakobyan’s defense attorney presented two petitions, the first of which referred to the bail, and the second to the 450 thousand drams found in Ashot Hakobyan’s pocket and presented to the court.

He intervened to return the mentioned amount, taking into account that it is not related to the case, and still during the preliminary investigation, a measure of retstraint was applied to the latter in the amount of 10 million drams.

“We find that the order of the measure of restraint in the form of bail can be abolished in general, and if the court, nevertheless, finds that the grounds of the order of measure of restraint are still preserved to a certain extent, we will ask to reduce the size of the bail,” the defense attorney said. He also added that Ashot Hakobyan is currently not working and has no source of income.

The prosecutor objected to the motion, saying that this is the phase during which the risk of obstructing or interfering in any way with the evidentiary process is higher because there are still accused persons to be questioned.

The court announced that the motion to cancel the measure of retstraint bail is subject to rejection, and the sum of 450 thousand drams, which was not recognized as physical evidence, will be returned to Ashot Hakobyan.

Regarding the motion submitted by Vigen Grigoryan’s defense attorney, it was decided to return the driver’s license and phones to the accused, and the issue of the amount will be discussed before the final court decision is made.

Two more accused will be interrogated at the next court session.

The next court hearing in this case will be held on 26 April.

Mariam Shahnazaryan