The prosecutor opened public criminal prosecution against Kocharyan on 24 August. He faces three counts of abuse of official authority, two of receiving bribes on a particularly large scale and four of money laundering on a particularly large scale, as the prosecutor's office lists them.
The committee's own statement puts the scale of what it is examining at about 144 billion drams, $309 million, €77 million and 18 million roubles in transfers made in the name of Kocharyan's son between 2001 and 2019. At 25 August rates the dram figure is about $395 million.
Individual episodes in the statement run from small sums to large ones. Land for the Play City complex went at 44,657,000 drams in 2002, and land at the Cascade complex at 39,630,000 drams, later exchanged for property the committee values at 1,741,931,000 drams. The Kaputak Sevan resort went at 83,669,000 drams in 2010.
“We view this as a politically motivated process.”
Sargsyan went to the committee the same day and was charged there. The charge falls under article 308 part 2 of the criminal code adopted on 18 April 2003, which the committee equates to article 441 part 2 point 5 of the code now in force. Asked on the way in why he had been called, he said, “I don't know yet.”
Kocharyan's blood pressure rose while he was being held. He was taken to hospital. “The health of R.K., who was detained pending a court hearing on a motion for his pretrial detention, deteriorated,” the committee said. No ruling on that motion had surfaced by 16:00 Yerevan time on any of the four Armenian outlets that carried the day hour by hour, news.am, panorama.am, aravot.am and 168.am.
His lawyer, Aram Orbelyan, disputes both the substance and the drafting. “We view this as a politically motivated process.” He described the file as “episodes related to the ratification of government decisions of previous years.”
The day before, in the parliamentary debate on the government programme, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan turned on Kocharyan's other son, the opposition MP Levon Kocharyan, and asked him how he had become a millionaire. Officers searched Levon Kocharyan's home on Tuesday morning. His lawyer, Erik Aleksanyan, said what they found was “mostly souvenirs and other personal belongings” with “no indication of an illicit origin.”