On November 18, the Anti-Corruption Criminal Court, presided over by Judge Vahe Dolmazyan, continued the trial of former Shengavit Administrative District Head Armen Sargsyan and “Lchap” Condominium Association Chairman-Manager Artashes Shahazizyan.

Armen Grigor Sargsyan is charged with abuse of official position and fraud. While serving as Shengavit’s head from 2011-2018, he fraudulently misappropriated, with the help of his close associate Artashes Shahazizyan, a 124.3 square meter space intended for educational purposes (valued at 18,720,000 drams). Initially, the property was registered under Shahazizyan’s name, and in 2019 it was donated to Sargsyan’s daughter, Anna Sargsyan. According to the indictment, the transaction was carried out using forged documents, violating laws and causing damage to the state.

According to Iravaban.net, the court session started 50 minutes late due to the late arrival of the prosecution and the defendant.

It should be noted that lawyer Karen Sadaryan did not appear at the court session.

During the court session, Artashes Shahazizyan’s defense lawyer Vahe Danielyan filed a motion to publish the investigator’s decision addressed to the prosecutor, as well as the prosecutor’s decision not to pursue public criminal prosecution due to the statute of limitations.

“I want to publish these two decisions to draw the court’s attention to the fact that the mentioned motion and prosecutor’s decision created an impression that Artashes Shahazizyan allegedly didn’t dispute committing the alleged act – supposedly using the fake document and privatizing based on it. By the way, I mentioned that a decision was made not to pursue prosecution, but there, in my opinion, either an alleged technical error was made or alleged forgery occurred, but unequivocally, if we examine Artashes Shahazizyan’s testimonies, it will be clear to everyone that he didn’t admit this guilt. Moreover, during the last interrogation, he testified that he didn’t use any forged document and didn’t carry out privatization based on it, whereas, for some reason, the investigator and prosecutor in their decisions stated that Shahazizyan didn’t dispute having committed the alleged act,” noted Danielyan.

According to the lawyer, all this could have a direct impact on determining whether his client is justifiably or unjustifiably guilty of allegedly aiding fraud, and this is precisely why the lawyer motions for the investigator’s motion and prosecutor’s decision to be published.

“As for other circumstances, these documents also prove that my client did not commit the alleged act attributed to him, or at least his commission of it is not proven. The arguments presented are also unfounded,” said Danielyan.

To the judge’s question about why the decisions mentioned by the lawyer weren’t appealed, he responded: “Essentially, we didn’t appeal considering that prosecution wouldn’t be pursued due to the statute of limitations, and because my client was in poor health. Upon receiving the decision, we thought the criminal proceedings would end, but when we were called to the Anti-Corruption Committee, the appeal deadline had passed. I don’t want to qualify that forgery was deliberately committed to be able to substantiate the charges against the defendant as much as possible. I think there was simply an oversight by the investigator, which continued by the prosecutor, because Article 5 contains my defendant’s testimony given as a witness, where the person clearly states that he never used a forged document, especially one given by Ashot Hakobyan. The testimony is followed by a motion according to which Artashes Shahazizyan didn’t dispute committing this act, whereas we said we agree with the statute of limitations, not with committing the act, we clearly differentiated these,” he noted.

The judge cited Article 12, Part 1, Points 11-14 of the Criminal Procedure Code, according to which criminal prosecution is not excluded if the person objects to terminating or not pursuing criminal prosecution based on the statute of limitations, arguing that they did not commit the act.

The judge concluded by announcing that at the next session, the arguments and evidence presented by the parties would be discussed to determine their significance for the further course of the case.

The court session was postponed due to another court session at 17:30. The next court hearing in this case will take place on January 14, 2025, at 10:00.

Lilit Khachatryan, Mariam Abrahamyan