Yerevan Deputy Mayor Gevorg Simonyan Arrested Along with 11 Others: Details

The Armenian National Anti-Corruption Committee has revealed through an investigation that Gevorg Simonyan, the Deputy Mayor of Yerevan and former Deputy Minister of Health from 2020 to 2022, failed to fulfill his official duties due to personal interests, leading to significant harm to the state's legal interests.

According to the collected evidence, the Armenian government allocated over 26 billion AMD for the implementation of measures related to the prevention, control, and treatment of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19), fully funded by the government's reserve fund. Under this program, a list of medical organizations entitled to state budget reimbursement for the diagnosis and treatment of Covid-19 was approved by the Minister of Health in 2020, which included the Medline Clinic LLC.

As per the Minister's order, Deputy Minister Gevorg Simonyan was tasked with managing the necessary medical assistance and service delivery for Covid-19, including coordinating financing, while L.E., an advisor in the Ministry of Health in the field of pulmonology and head of the stable department of the National Center for Pulmonology, was appointed as responsible for triaging patients confirmed with COVID-19 for hospitalization and discharge.

The investigation uncovered that the founder and director of Medline Clinic LLC, B.Sh., organized the inclusion of false information in official medical histories of patients treated by the clinic's doctors, in collusion with the same individuals, resulting in the embezzlement of a large amount of money. Specifically, at least eight doctors from the medical organization included false information in the medical histories of 385 patients who underwent inpatient treatment between July 2020 and December 2021, falsely indicating that these patients received treatment in the intensive care unit, subsequently submitting fake reports to the Ministry of Health.

Based on the fraudulent reports, Medline Clinic LLC received an unjustified payment of 119,005,000 AMD for services not actually rendered. Gevorg Simonyan, responsible for coordinating the financing of the aforementioned program, failed to supervise the discharge triage committee, comprising L.E. and others, due to personal interests in maintaining his prior working relationship with B.Sh. This lapse allowed B.Sh. to fraudulently misappropriate a significant amount of money, totaling 119,005,000 AMD.

Considering the evidence of the crime, the investigating officer of the Anti-Corruption Committee submitted a motion to the supervising prosecutor on March 9, 2023, to initiate public prosecution against Simonyan under the previous provisions of part 2 of Article 308 of the Criminal Code. The motion was granted, and a decision was made to detain Simonyan while he was free, in order to present him to the court as a preventive measure.

On March 10, within the framework of the criminal case, both Gevorg Simonyan and B.Sh., the director of Medline Clinic LLC, along with L.E. and eight other individuals, were arrested. The investigation is ongoing.

Notice: The accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty in accordance with the procedures established by the Criminal Procedure Code of Armenia, by a decision of the court that has legally entered into force.