Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Court has dismissed a separate claim in an illicit asset forfeiture case against former police chief Valeri Osipyan and his wife, finding insufficient grounds to classify property gifted to him by the state as being of illicit origin.
The court ruled that doubts about the legality of a gift transaction, the actions or omissions preceding it, or any possible defects in related legal acts are not, in themselves, sufficient to establish that property is of illicit origin under the law, Pastinfo reports.
The case, brought by Armenia’s Prosecutor General’s Office against Osipyan and his wife, is being heard by Anti-Corruption Court Judge Karapet Badalyan.
Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of an 84% share in an apartment in Yerevan’s Kentron district, a 96% share in a parking space, a Lexus vehicle, the defendants’ entire two-fifths share in another Yerevan apartment, a bank deposit and an apartment in Kotayk Province.
The claim also seeks 48,004,645 Armenian drams representing the remaining balance of allegedly illicit income, as well as 42,891,376 drams that prosecutors say cannot be justified by lawful income and are either held to have been transferred to a bona fide purchaser or cannot be identified and confiscated.
According to the report, Osipyan received the disputed apartment in Kotayk Province as a gift from the Armenian state. Nevertheless, the Prosecutor General’s Office classified the property as being of illicit origin and sought its confiscation, along with income received over the years from the disposal of a land plot.
The court separated the claim concerning the gifted property from the main proceedings, examined it under an expedited procedure and dismissed it as manifestly unfounded.
The case materials included a property donation agreement submitted by the prosecution itself, confirming that Osipyan had received the real estate free of charge from the Republic of Armenia.
The court found that the circumstances cited by prosecutors lacked sufficient legal and factual significance to establish that the acquisition of the property could not be substantiated by the defendant’s lawful sources of income, as defined by law.
