Sevan Who Testified Against Serzh Sargsyan Claims Everyone Was 'Swindled': Former Deputy Director of Flash

During the hearing at the court of general jurisdiction of Yerevan, Avan and Nor Nork division, presided over by Judge Vahe Misakyan, witness Yeghishe Khachatryan was questioned today in the case of Armenia's third president Serzh Sargsyan and others, as reported by News.am.

The witness stated that initially he did not even remember the competition of the Ministry of Agriculture, but after viewing some documents during the pre-trial investigation, he recalled that the 'Flash' company had submitted a price offer for that competition: 'It is possible that they handed over that process to 'Flash' LLC by a government decision.'

According to the witness, the price proposed by the 'Flash' company was also affected by the quality of the diesel fuel: 'Sevan could not have brought such fuel, because he always brought Persian fuel. They could not have brought such diesel from Iran that would meet winter conditions; we brought it from Europe.'

Yeghishe Khachatryan noted that Sevan Kocharyan's company could not meet the project requirements, and that only large companies operating in the market could do that. 'I didn’t tell much about Sevan to the investigator; I didn’t want to. I told him separately that this and that happened, but it wasn’t recorded, I didn’t allow it to be recorded. Sevan, wherever he worked, swindled everyone. He worked at the VIAD company, he was fired because he swindled them. It was mainly an oil company, but he also dealt with diesel fuel. Sevan doesn’t understand anything about diesel fuel; he knows that diesel fuel is a commodity that is bought and sold, but he doesn't know what kind of product it is and what its parameters are.'

It is noteworthy that according to the indictment, with the organization of Serzh Sargsyan and the instigation of Vahram Beglaryan, with the assistance of Samvel Galstyan and Gevorg Harutyunyan, a particularly large sum of 489,160,310 AMD, allocated for the subsidy for the realization of 15,391,765 liters of diesel fuel used during public support programs, was misappropriated from the government reserve fund from January 25 to February 7, 2013. Serzh Sargsyan is accused under the first part of Article 38-179, which pertains to the misappropriation or embezzlement of particularly large amounts. The former president does not accept the charges brought against him, and his defenders describe this process as political persecution.