According to the information of the General Prosecutor's Office, Alexander Sargsyan, the brother of Serzh Sargsyan, the third president of Armenia, transferred EUR 8.4 million to the state within the framework of a criminal case a year and a half ago.
According to the information, Sargsyan transferred this money to pay the damages and fines caused as a result of the crime in the criminal case opened after the change of power in 2018. That is why Sargsyan was not brought up on criminal charges.
The criminal case was opened under the article of willful evasion of taxes and other mandatory payments, with confiscation of property and a prison sentence of 5 to 10 years. As for Sargsyan, he paid the taxes he evaded at the time, so the criminal prosecution against him was not continued.
Before and after the Velvet Revolution of 2018, there was an opinion in the opposition circles and among the broader public that the "powerful" brother of Serzh Sargsyan obtained 50 percent of the income by illegally entering the shares of various profitable enterprises in Armenia. A few months after coming to power, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Alexander Sargsyan's money in one of Armenia's bank accounts was seized. "They said, 'Where is Sashik's [Sargsyan] 50 percent? I also ask, Where is it? Serzh Sargsyan's brother, Sashik Sargsyan, has 30 million dollars in a bank in Armenia, and all the money has been seized," Pashinyan said in 2018.
The General Prosecutor's Office also reported that 66-year-old Sargsyan donated EUR 19.5 million to the armed forces and military fund of [separatist] Nagorno-Karabakh, in addition to EUR 6.6 million. It is reported that there are two criminal cases against Sargsyan. One of them talks about illegal stakes in various enterprises over the years. Pashinyan spoke about this when he was an opposition deputy.
Human rights defender Zaruhi Hovhannisyan said Pashinyan's team did not live up to the public's expectations. "In exchange for monetary compensation, people are released. There is an impression that such statements were simply illegal; moreover, the law enforcement agencies did not conduct the necessary investigation and did not collect enough facts," he stressed.
