Armenia's ex-prosecutor general will be released on 100 million dram bail

YEREVAN, Aug. 11. /ARKA/. Armenia's former Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan, standing trial on charges of illegal entrepreneurship, bribery, fraud and legalization of illegally obtained incomes, will be released on a 100 million dram bail, his lawyer Yerem Sargsyan said in a Facebook post.

Earlier on Thursday, the other lawyer Erik Aleksanyan said they had requested an extraordinary court session to consider their petition to release Hovsepyan from custody due to his health conditions. He also said that new documents on the health condition of the defendant were submitted to the court.

Hovsepyan was arrested in September 2021. According to the Special Investigative Service, Hovsepyan had received a particularly large bribe of 190,000,000 drams and fraudulently committed a particularly large embezzlement of 800,000,000 drams. Hovsepyan was also charged with money laundering on a particularly large scale - 1,299,404,414 drams.

According to earlier reports, while serving as Armenia's Prosecutor General from 2004 to 2013, and later as head of the Investigation Service from 2014 to 2018, Hovsepyan abused his powers to earn billions of drams through a string of businesses controlled by him.

His lawyers insist that the businesses are owned by Hovsepyan's sons and that the ex-prosecutor had nothing to do with them. ($1 - 405.78 drams) -0-