The legal team of former Finance Minister and former State Revenue Committee head Gagik Khachatryan has issued a statement responding to the Armenian Prosecutor General’s Office announcement of September 1, which listed property and financial assets allegedly subject to confiscation from Khachatryan and his family members.
The lawyers say the published information requires further clarification because the reported scale does not reflect the actual number of assets or their ownership. They specifically addressed the “193 real estate properties” attributed to Khachatryan.
According to the defense, that figure counts separate ownership certificates and does not correspond to the number of independently used properties. As an example, they cite land near the town of Yeghvard in Kotayk Province, where about 90 ownership certificates relate to a single land area. The statement says the plot was assembled over different years through the purchase of separate sections that were never merged for registration purposes, although in practice the area is used as one whole for horticulture and mainly contains fruit trees.
The lawyers also argue that some of the other assets on the list belong not only to Gagik Khachatryan or his family members, but also to dozens of other individuals from roughly another ten families. They say those assets are also being attributed to Khachatryan based on an alleged “interrelatedness,” despite the defense having repeatedly submitted legal and factual arguments that the acquisition of those properties and the ownership rights attached to them are unrelated to him.
The second part of the statement concerns non-property assets, specifically bonds. The legal team says there has been confusion over bonds allegedly attributed to Khachatryan in the amount of $1 BILLION 451 MILLION. According to the lawyers, after calls and written appeals to the prosecution, the figure on the website was corrected with a note saying it had been amended, but the Russian and English versions of the site still contain the uncorrected number.
The defense says the actual total value of the bonds is $1 MILLION 451 thousand, not $1 BILLION 451 MILLION.
The lawyers further argue that the case is still before the court and that, in the absence of a final legally binding judicial act, such publications amount to a serious breach of the presumption of innocence. The statement also says that 71-year-old Khachatryan, who according to his lawyers has serious health problems and has never tried to hide or obstruct the investigation, remains in custody.
