The Anti-Corruption Court today, December 5, held a hearing on the case of confiscation of allegedly illegally acquired property of Vahagn Vermishyan, former chairman of the Urban Development Committee and former chief architect of Stepanavan city.
According to Iravaban.net, at this session, Armen Melkumyan, the representative of respondent Vahagn Vermishyan, made a motion regarding the recognition of responses to their inquiries received from abroad as written evidence.
Prosecutor Naira Artashesyan of the Department for Confiscation of Illegally Acquired Property objected to the presented evidence, noting that the missed deadline for their submission cannot be considered excusable because the respondent side was initially aware of the rental of the relevant real estate and the income received from it. According to Artashesyan, the respondent side did not present it, being convinced that the plaintiff would abandon the claim after recalculation.
In response to the prosecutor, attorney Armen Melkumyan said that this issue has been discussed many times․ Yes, the trial is adversarial, under which conditions the respondent side believes that during this trial, they, as private individuals, are in a worse position when compared with the plaintiff.
“The plaintiff has the toolkit defined by Article 5, Paragraph 2 of the ‘Law on Confiscation of Illegally Acquired Property’ by the legislator, that the latter has not tried to obtain that information within the framework of interdepartmental, intergovernmental agreements, well aware that the respondent and the respondent’s members have lived and created in the Russian Federation for more than 30 years, have been absent from Armenia since 1991, and the study was limited to the territory of Armenia and presenting to the court only that the latter has 4 properties, of which 2 are land plots – without any justification that they have illegal origin, is almost puzzling for us,” said the lawyer.
As the prosecutor herself had previously reported, no inquiry about Vermishyan’s properties has been made to any other country.
According to Melkumyan, they were forced to spend additional resources, take measures, engage lawyers in other countries to be able to receive that information: “It took more than 4 months just to be able to approve and get a power of attorney from the Anti-Corruption Court of Appeals so that we could send it to our colleague in Russia and get those documents.”
Responding to the plaintiff’s assertion that the documents were not submitted within the appropriate timeframes, Melkumyan said: “No matter how much you object, in essence, the objective reality will not change by that, the person has worked, created, completed a number of well-known projects for 30 years, received compensation for it, and could he not acquire 4 properties in Armenia, of which 2 are land plots?
…We were forced, under conditions where the prosecution did not apply the toolkit provided by the legislator, to go ourselves and obtain that information, and we believe that the study conducted is incomplete, does not fully reflect the real picture.”
Naira Artashesyan, regarding the lawyer’s last statement, noted that it is a different issue, which will become a subject of discussion during the judicial examination: “Yes, the trial is adversarial, and here the plaintiff has no advantage over private individuals, we use the same rights as a plaintiff involved in ordinary civil proceedings, and from this perspective, we have no advantage.”
The prosecutor insisted that if a person has corresponding property, they do not make any efforts to obtain evidence regarding that property, all documents about it are accessible.
According to Iravaban.net, the court recorded that the motion was justified, the missed deadlines should be considered excusable, and the submitted documents should be accepted as written evidence.
Presiding Judge Karapet Badalyan also emphasized that the respondent side had initially reported that actions were being taken to obtain evidence outside Armenia, which would be accompanied by difficulties, which is also conditioned by Vahagn Vermishyan’s criminal case.
It was noted that the Criminal Court of Appeals had correspondence with this court regarding the issuance of the corresponding power of attorney. Accordingly, the lawyer’s consideration is correct that months were required just to resolve that issue.
At this session, the plaintiff side also motioned to demand from the respondent the original documents of property rights certificates, inspection acts, and lease agreement, stating that there are certain doubts about their authenticity and dates of compilation.
Respondent’s representative Armen Melkumyan announced that these documents would be filed with the court within 2 days. He said that the respondent side also wants to see what calculation has been made as of now, the prosecutor responded that after examining the originals, there might be changes, and at this moment they cannot express a final position about it.
The next court session in this case will take place on January 21.
Mariam Shahnazaryan
Details in the video.
