Court orders arrest of Aleksandr Sargsyan
The court has issued a decision to arrest Aleksandr Sargsyan, a former member of the RA National Assembly and brother of former President Serzh Sargsyan. Detention has been selected as a preventive measure, and he has been declared wanted. This was reported by the Prosecutor’s Office.
According to the criminal case materials, Aleksandr Sargsyan—leveraging his influence as the brother of Serzh Sargsyan, who held the position of RA Minister of Defense from 2000 to 2007—incited the heads of the Military Police Department of the RA Ministry of Defense during the 2001–2018 period to embezzle particularly large-scale state funds entrusted to them.
During the discussion of the motion in court, it was noted that the whereabouts of the accused are unknown.
“On the same day, the court, considering the motion in circumstances where the whereabouts of the accused are unknown and assessing the risk of flight as high, granted it and applied detention,” the court stated.
It is noted that should Aleksandr Sargsyan be located and brought under the jurisdiction of Armenia, the issue of his detention will be reviewed by the court.
It is worth recalling that Aleksandr Sargsyan is also involved in another case. In 2024, the Department for Illicit Asset Confiscation of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office filed a claim with the court to confiscate 14 real estate units, 8 movable assets, stakes in 5 legal entities, as well as 5 billion 92 million AMD from Sargsyan and his affiliated persons in favor of the Republic of Armenia.
Earlier, in 2019, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that there was around 30 million USD in one of Aleksandr Sargsyan’s bank accounts. Subsequently, Sargsyan announced that he was donating 20.5 million USD to the Artsakh army and had returned about 7 million USD to the state budget as unpaid tax liabilities.
On July 4, 2018, the National Security Service (NSS) conducted a search lasting about 9 hours at the Sargsyans’ apartment at 11 Tumanyan Street in Yerevan, after which Aleksandr Sargsyan was detained by the NSS. He was also interrogated within the scope of charges brought against his son, Narek Sargsyan, regarding the theft of 14 drawings by the artist Martiros Saryan.
As a reminder, Sargsyan’s son, Narek Sargsyan, was later discovered in Prague with a Guatemalan passport under the pseudonym Franklin Gonzalez. He was accused of kidnapping a citizen, as well as illicit trafficking of weapons and drugs; he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison.
His other son, Hayk Sargsyan, was also charged with illegal possession of weapons and attempted murder. He was acquitted on one count, while the criminal prosecution on the other count was terminated.
