The prosecutor in the case of Armenia’s third president, Serzh Sargsyan, demanded confiscation of nearly 4 billion drams in favor of the state.
“Confiscate 3,337,557,000 drams from Serzh Sargsyan in favor of the state. In addition, under the fourth count of charges against Sargsyan, which also involves co-defendant Valeri Grigoryan, confiscate jointly 76,852,000 drams in favor of Armenia’s state budget. Furthermore, under the 17th count of Sargsyan’s case, which is also among the charges brought against Aleksan Aleksanyan, confiscate jointly 526,520,000 drams,” the prosecutor said, according to Sputnik Armenia.
The prosecution also petitioned the judge to take measures to secure the property claim.
Defense lawyer Amram Makinyan responded to the prosecutor’s statements, stressing that his wording amounted to a violation of the presumption of innocence, Panorama.am reported.
“While presenting the property claim, public prosecutor Gorik Hovakimyan repeatedly used terms such as accomplices, prearranged criminal scheme, concealment of criminal actions by accomplices, prior agreements between accomplices, and so on.
At this stage, the presumption of innocence remains in force. According to this principle, an accused person is considered innocent until proven guilty by a final court judgment. Yet my esteemed colleague kept referring to ‘accomplices,’ a ‘criminal scheme,’ and more.
The European Court of Human Rights has stated that failure to uphold the presumption of innocence may undermine the fairness of the process and create or reinforce public perception of guilt as an established fact. This is exactly the case here.
This is a gross violation of the presumption of innocence and absolutely unacceptable,” he said.
The next court hearing is scheduled for October 22 at 16:00.
Serzh Sargsyan faces charges on 18 counts of large-scale property embezzlement, 2 counts of legalization of embezzled assets through abuse of office, and 3 counts of assisting money laundering, linked to land transactions near Isakov Avenue and Yerablur.
