Armenia’s Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) has filed a request with a local Yerevan court to seize 681.9 million drams (US$1.730 million) from Arsen Avetisyan, director of the defunct Air Armenia company, charging him with embezzling the money paid in the form of an AMD 10,000 air tax by passengers departing from Armenia.

The tax was introduced in Armenia in 2009 and withdrawn ten years later.

Air Armenia, a passenger and cargo airline established in 2003, halted operations in 2014 due to financial problems.  

In 2019, a lower court found Avetisyan innocent of all charges. The PGO then filed an appeal to overturn the court’s decision. That request was denied, forcing the PGO to take the case to the Court of Cassation.

Finding in favor of the PGO, the Cassation Court sent the case to the lower court for retrial.

Avetisyan claims he took out personal bank loans to keep the financially strapped company from going under due to Russian airline competition. He says he even mortgaged a house owned by his parents.

Avetisyan’s lawyers claim the company in fact paid a sizeable chunk of state taxes and that the company incurred losses amounting to $16 million when it was put up for auction.

“As a businessman, it is possible that I have allowed some shortcomings or omissions but viewing my actions as embezzlement of state property is as strange as it is incomprehensible," Avetisyan said at an earlier court date.