How Much Money Has the Anti-Corruption Committee Returned to the State in One Year: Khachatryan

Today, an event was held to summarize the work done by the Anti-Corruption Committee of the Republic of Armenia in the direction of creating and forming a new law enforcement body, dedicated to the Worker’s Day of the Committee and the first anniversary of its formation.

The Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, State Advisor of Justice Class III Sasun Khachatryan, addressing the work done towards the establishment and stabilization of the institution and the recorded achievements, emphasized that being the only investigative body in Armenia conducting operational-investigative activities indeed provides new opportunities for effective investigation but also raises high expectations from the Committee’s activities. This, in turn, entails great responsibility to form a structure equipped with conscientious and knowledgeable staff as well as cutting-edge technical means corresponding to modern challenges, whose combined and complementary work of both investigative and operational-investigative units will yield tangible results in the fight against corruption.

The head of the Committee presented the statistical indicators of the criminal cases examined, noting that over the past year, the number of cases under the investigation of the inspectors has increased more than threefold. From October 23, 2021, until now, the Anti-Corruption Committee has examined 1,042 criminal cases, whereas, in the previous year, the Special Investigative Service of the Republic of Armenia handled 565 criminal cases. That is to say, comparing these figures, in its very first year of operation, the Committee has investigated 477 more criminal cases (84.4%) with fewer investigators. Currently, there are 366 criminal cases under examination, whereas, at the onset of its activities on October 23, 2021, the Anti-Corruption Committee had only 114 criminal cases under investigation.

As for criminal cases referred to the court, they have predominantly been complex and multi-faceted cases of corruption. Currently, the Committee’s investigators are conducting preliminary investigations into several other complex and multi-faceted cases, among which I would like to highlight the criminal case organized by former and current officials of the State Cadastre Committee and their close relatives, involving fraudulent acts of seizing state and community-owned land plots. At the current stage of the investigation, 12 episodes have been revealed, which involve the seizure of approximately 12 hectares of land, located in the Norq-Marash, Ajapnyak, and Kentron administrative districts of Yerevan, which is state and community property. The market value of these plots exceeds 7.8 billion Armenian drams, or nearly 19 million US dollars.

According to Sasun Khachatryan, in the accountable year, through criminal cases examined by the Committee, including completed cases, approximately 663 million drams of damages inflicted to the state have been recovered in cash. Additionally, as a real measure to secure the recovery of damages, a seizure has been imposed on properties worth about 9 billion 535 million drams.

“By the way, the state has been proven to have been caused damage of 39.9 billion drams in just two criminal cases. Without mentioning the specific criminal cases, I can clarify that a seizure has been imposed on the properties of the defendants corresponding to the entire volume of damages, meaning that there is a real guarantee that, under a guilty verdict, the damages will be recovered. In both cases, the defendants are on the wanted list, so we are currently waiting for the Supreme Court's position on the applicability of the criminal procedural norms governing remote proceedings in the absence of the defendant to send the aforementioned cases to the prosecutor with an accusatory conclusion. In total, properties and financial assets worth approximately 66 billion 789 million drams are under seizure due to the criminal cases being examined by the Committee,” the Committee's head stated.

To root the awareness of responsibility and inevitability of punishment in society, Sasun Khachatryan believes it is necessary to have good legislation, competent and honest professionals at all stages of criminal proceedings, and throughout the law enforcement system. “If any of these links violate any of these principles, then the algorithm is disrupted, and the issue is not resolved,” said the Chairman of the Committee, continuing that, even cautiously, we can note today that the consistent fight against corruption has somewhat strengthened the conviction of accountability for corrupt crimes in society and trust in the law enforcement system. One manifestation of this is the many reports from citizens informing about apparent abuses by various individuals in public service. It is noteworthy that public service employees themselves have begun to speak out about manifestations of corruption within their agencies, which undoubtedly contributes to providing impartial service free from corruption risks in specific bodies.

According to Sasun Khachatryan, the positive indicators recorded in the area of combating corruption in our country are already evidenced by the report of the Eastern Partnership Index published with the support of the European Union, which recorded significant progress for Armenia in the fight against corruption. According to the aforementioned index, Armenia ranked first in 5 areas, among which the first was the fight against corruption.