Today, on October 16, a court hearing was held in the Anti-Corruption Civil Court regarding the case of confiscation of allegedly illegally acquired property and funds of the former Yerevan Mayor, now National Assembly deputy Taron Margaryan and his family members. The hearing is presided over by Judge Karapet Badalyan.
According to Iravaban.net, in this court session, the representatives of the responding party were to direct questions to the plaintiff regarding calculations and financial data.
Ruzanna Khudaverdyan, the prosecutor of the Department for Confiscation of Illegally Acquired Property, made a statement about this, informing that the other representative of the plaintiff could not appear due to health issues. She noted that they can address the questions that do not relate to the financial part in this session, as the financial data is subject to more detailed examination: “Based on effectiveness, I think it would be better if the specialist comes to the next session, and we try to exhaust all the questions of the financial part.”
Benik Galstyan, the representative of the respondents Taron Margaryan and Gohar Sargsyan, said that in one of the previous sessions he had presented most of his questions in written form, and there is an agreement that the answers to these questions will also be received in written form: “The respected representative of the plaintiff presented us with relevant calculations a few sessions ago. I should note that we also have many financial questions regarding these calculations, some of which are not yet ready, some are partially ready, and some will depend on the answers to the questions I previously presented.”
He suggested presenting the written version of the answers earlier so that the question-and-answer process would be more effective.
Khudaverdyan said that the written answers are not available at this moment, it’s not fully prepared, they will try to send the written version in advance before the next session on October 22.
The presiding judge said: “This is already the umpteenth session where you should provide clarifications on financial issues. I suggest that you perform your actions a bit more diligently.”
Other representatives of the respondent noted that the financial issues are an integral part of the subject of the claim, and the questions mainly relate to that.
Mushegh Arakelyan, the advocate representing the respondents Nahapet Margaryan, Andranik Margaryan, and Karine Margaryan, stated that the scope of their next actions should stem from the answers to the financial questions, and certain clarifications should be provided, for example, about the progress of calculations made regarding the minimum consumer basket.
The prosecutor said that the issue of written answers was not discussed during previous court sessions, but she sees no problem in presenting the answers in that format: “If the financier were present, undoubtedly all clarifications would be presented orally in this very session, but due to objective reasons, their presence was not possible.”
After hearing the positions of the parties and considering the absence of the specialist, the court decided to postpone the session. The next session was scheduled for October 22.
More details are in the video.
Mariam Shahnazaryan
