The Charges Against Suren Aloyan Are Groundless, But We Don’t See a Political Context, Says Lawyer

In the years 2019-20, Suren Aloyan, the founder of dasaran.am, transferred the website's database to the Ministry of Defense on a public basis to prepare a product for the department. Years later, it turned out that the Ministry did not use this product, which led to the initiation of a criminal case.

This information was shared with Sputnik Armenia by Aloyan's lawyer, Levon Sahakyan.

On December 15, it became known that Suren Aloyan was arrested. His lawyer, Levon Sahakyan, wrote that his client was accused of having “dared to assist the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia in a manner prescribed by law.”

Sahakyan reported that an obviously illegal search was conducted at Suren Aloyan's apartment yesterday morning, during which the lawyer was not allowed to be present.

“The charges against Aloyan are groundless, but we do not see a political context. We simply think that the investigative committee does not know what it is doing,” said the lawyer.

He specified that Suren Aloyan is accused of having provided the dasaran.am platform to an organization that serves the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia. This concerns software development.

“In 2019-20, an order was placed by the Ministry of Defense for this organization to prepare a product for the department. That product was developed over 2-3 years and delivered to the Ministry in proper quality. Dasaran.am transferred its databases to the Ministry according to the established procedure. The Ministry was interested in understanding what kind of students we had, what their preferences were, and where they were located. To this day, there has been no objection, complaint, or requirement from the Ministry of Defense regarding that product. Years have passed, and it has now become clear that the Ministry does not use that product. We cannot say for what purpose it was intended,” said the lawyer.

According to him, a criminal case was initiated presumably because an inadequate product was provided. Charges were brought against both the organization and Suren Aloyan as an accomplice.

“Aloyan has the status of a defendant. I hope and am almost certain that he will remain in that status for a very short time, and the criminal prosecution against him will be terminated on the grounds of acquittal,” he stated.

It is worth noting that earlier today, the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Armenia reported that five individuals, including Suren Aloyan and the former head of the Ministry of Defense's Information and Public Relations Department, Gevorg Altunyan, are accused of embezzling 106,300,000 AMD as part of the procurement procedures organized for the needs of the Ministry of Defense between 2019 and 2021.