Gagik Beglaryan's Representatives File Counterclaim Against Prosecutor's Office

On July 21, a court session was held in the Anti-Corruption Court regarding the confiscation of the illegally acquired property of former Yerevan Mayor and former Minister of Transport and Communications Gagik Beglaryan. The presiding judge was Nairine Avagyan.

During the proceedings, the representatives of the defendants, led by Norair Balayan, announced that they wished to file a counterclaim. According to him, the claim consists of four parts. As reported by Hetq:

1. Did the competent authority comply with the established regulations regarding the initiation of an investigation into illegally acquired property?

2. Could the authority legally define the investigation period starting 10 years prior to the decision made on October 8, 2020, to initiate the investigation, including the time before the conclusion of the investigation?

3. Was it within the authority's legal purview to define the investigation period with a decision on July 27, 2021, extending back to May 10, 1992?

4. Based on the preliminary findings of the investigation, could the authority have initiated the confiscation claim concerning the illegally acquired property?

Lawyer Gevorg Virabyan stated that the competent authority could only initiate the investigation if two conditions were met simultaneously:

- There must be criminal proceedings initiated against the individual for any of the offenses stipulated by law.

- There must be sufficient grounds to suspect that the defendant or a connected person owns illegally acquired property.

According to Virabyan, the prosecutor's office did not have sufficient grounds to start an investigation and lacked adequate grounds to suspect Gagik Beglaryan of owning illegally acquired property; thus, the existing criminal prosecution was still insufficient to commence the investigation.

He noted that the competent authority was obliged to state in its decision the factual data that allowed it to determine the grounds for starting the investigation and conclude that there was sufficient ground to suspect that the respondent owned illegally acquired property. Virabyan asserted that the initial claim of the prosecutor's office should be rejected.

Response to the next query, Virabyan remarked that legally, property could be deemed illegally acquired irrespective of whether it was acquired before or after the law was enacted. However, he mentioned that the Constitution stipulates that laws and legal acts detrimental to an individual's legal status do not have retroactive effect.

Within the context of this constitutional principle, it is stated in the Law on the Confiscation of Illegally Acquired Property that the period under investigation should include from the point of the decision to commence the investigation until the time of its conclusion, as well as the time period preceding the decision to start the investigation, which cannot exceed 10 years.

“On one hand, a maximum timeframe for conducting the study has been established, which is 10 years; on the other hand, the authority has the subjective obligation to determine the investigation period,” Virabyan said. He explained that the prosecutor's office is legally limited from arbitrarily choosing the timeframe.

Virabyan further explained that if an individual conditionally committed an illicit act regarding the confiscation of illegally acquired property in 2016, then the competent authority has the subjective right to investigate the 2016 timeframe since it lacks sufficient grounds to suspect that such an unlawful act also occurred prior to 2016.

Referring to the case concerning Gagik Beglaryan, Gevorg Virabyan explained that the competent authority's suspicions were related to the building at 3 Tamanian Street in Yerevan, where the acts attributed to Beglaryan were committed between 2008 and 2010.

“This means that at the time the competent authority decided to commence the investigation, the prosecutor’s office had sufficient grounds to assume that only the building at 3 Tamanian Street could be regarded as illegally acquired property,” Virabyan stated.

He clarified that the competent authority could have investigated the period of 2010. “When the competent authority decided to initiate the investigation, it could only include the preceding 10 years and the period until the conclusion of the investigation if it justified the causal link between the circumstances, the grounds for starting the investigation, the suspicion, and the time period under investigation,” he said.

Prosecutor Nelli Ter-Torosyan noted that the burden of proof for the causal link between the criminal act and the acquired property does not rest with the competent authority.

She also stated that the grounds for filing a claim would derive not only from the materials acquired through the criminal case but also from the results of operational intelligence measures.

According to Prosecutor Nelli Ter-Torosyan, the acceptance of the counterclaim for processing is subject to rejection.

Judge Nairine Avagyan stated that the court session would be postponed to resolve the issue of whether to accept the counterclaim for processing. The next session was scheduled for August 17 at 11:00 AM.

It is worth noting that the prosecutor's office demands the confiscation of 33 residential apartments, properties, buildings, and parking spaces located in Yerevan from Gagik Beglaryan and three associated individuals in favor of the Republic of Armenia, among which 11 are in Northern Avenue, 7 on Khorenatsi Street, 3 on Arshakunyats Avenue, 2 villas on Freedom Avenue, 2 lots on Tamanian Street, 2 (one building and one parking lot) on Teryan Street, as well as other real estate properties in various administrative districts of Yerevan, 2 land plots in Kotayk region (community of Tsaghkadzor) and 1 land plot in Ararat region (community of Sis), and 1 vehicle (a MERCEDES-BENZ S600L), or in the case of impossibility, their average market value, which totals 10,704,483,825 drams; participation rights in 10 legal entities; 8 creditors' rights for undelivered loan amounts totaling 1,879,759,719 drams; income from the unauthorized use of illegally acquired property amounting to 882,745,274.9 drams; and 3,317,008,604 drams that cannot be justified by legitimate income and is considered illegally acquired.