Associate of Serzh Sargsyan has arrest extended
Deputy Chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia and associate of former Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan Armen Ashotyan's arrest has been extended for another month.
His lawyer Ruben Melikyan told journalists this outside the court building.
The defense intends to appeal the arrest as soon as it receives the court decision, Sputnik Armenia reports.
The case concerns events in 2019, when Ashotyan held the post of Minister of Education and Science.
The Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia claims that the former minister of education used his official position in collusion with former Finance Minister Gagik Khachatryan and his son, the chairman of the Board of Trustees, rector of Yerevan Brusov University and three vice-rectors of the university, as well as a person connected with them, to transfer real estate and a land plot with an area of 451.1 sq m (valued at 209 million drams) at 38/1 Pushkin Street into the ownership of the fund of the high-ranking official and a person connected with him through a corruption scheme. In addition, the university lost the opportunity to use its property.
To conceal the illegal origin of the property, it was first registered in the name of a certain G.T., after which it was fictitiously sold to the son of Gagik Khachatryan.
