The Office of the Prosecutor-General told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that Sarkisian, who now leads one of Armenia’s main opposition groups, was formally charged in late January with “large-scale embezzlement or waste” of public property as well as money laundering. It gave no details of the accusations stemming from the 2005 sale of state-owned land adjacent to Yerevan’s Yerablur military cemetery.
Sarkisian served as defense minister at the time. His lawyer, Amram Makinian, said he is accused of helping to privatize the land at cutdown prices.
“These accusations have absolutely nothing to do with reality,” said Makinian.
He claimed that they are based on prosecutors’ arbitrary interpretation of “civil law-based transactions” and inaccurate valuation of the privatized land. The lawyer also argued that the sale of the several plots of land was sanctioned by the then Armenian government and that none of their buyers are related to Sarkisian.
“Another fabricated accusation has been levelled against President Serzh Sarkisian,” charged Eduard Sharmazanov, a senior member of his Republican Party of Armenia (HHK).
The 70-year-old ex-president, who ruled Armenia from 2008-2018, already went on trial in 2020 for allegedly helping a longtime friend and businessman win a public procurement contract in 2013. He rejected the accusation as politically motivated before being acquitted by a Yerevan court last May. The judge who handed down that ruling was removed from the bench in October, ostensibly because of his handling of another trial.
The prosecutors reported the fresh criminal case three days after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian lashed out at Sarkisian and another ex-president, Robert Kocharian, saying that they are behind opposition figures challenging the ruling Civil Contract party in an upcoming municipal election in Gyumri. He compared those challengers to “rats.”
Pashinian continued to lambaste Sarkisian and Kocharian on Monday in a series of Facebook posts and comments. Opposition representatives countered that he is reverting to inflammatory language and verbal attacks on the country’s former leaders in a desperate effort to prevent his party’s electoral defeat.
