On 10 December, Czech Republic authorities agreed to extradite to Armenia the fugitive nephew of former President Serzh Sargsyan accused of illegal arms possession and drug trafficking, reported the Armenian Radio Free Europe. 

This information was confirmed by Gor Abrahamyan, a press officer for Armenia's Prosecutor-General. “Given the wide interest of the public in this issue, we [want the people to know] that the competent authorities of the Czech Republic decided to satisfy the request of Armenian Prosecutor General’s Office to extradite Narek Sargsyan for prosecution,” he said.

On 4 June the spokesperson of the Prague City Court Marketa Putzi declared that the Court made a decision on the extradition of Narek Sargsyan, but said verdict was yet to be made final by the Czech Ministry of Justice (Caucasus Watch reported).  

Narek Sargsyan fled Armenia shortly before his family’s mansion in Yerevan was searched by the National Security Service (NSS) in July 2018. The NSS claimed that he asked one of his friends to hide his illegally owned guns, cocaine and other drugs in a safer place. It released video showing two suitcases purportedly filled with those items. Investigators found in the villa large amounts of cash, jewellery items as well as over a dozen drawings by the 20th century Armenian painter Martiros Saryan.

The 38-year-old was detained by police in Prague in December 2018 and has since been facing extradition to Armenia. During the arrest, he reportedly produced a fake Guatemalan passport identifying him as Franklin Gonzalez.

Serzh Sargsyan is also facing an investigation in Armenia over an alleged organized embezzlement by a group of officials of 489 million drams (just over $1 million) in government funds allocated in 2013 for the provision of subsidized diesel fuel to farmers (Caucasus Watch reported).