Following Hetq's first report in 2018 about Armenian officials who’ve purchased real estate in Dubai, a preliminary investigation has been underway involving Babken Sedrakyan, a former high-ranking police officer and current head of the Yerevan Metro.

In November 2018, Hetq wrote about several Armenian officials and businessmen who had purchased real estate in Dubai. Among them was Babken Sedrakyan, who had served as Kyrgyzstan’s Honorary Consul to the Republic of Armenia since 2017 and was appointed Honorary Consul General of Kyrgyzstan to Armenia in February 2022.

Babken Sedrakyan

A month after the above article, Sedrakyan was appointed head of the Police Operational-Investigative Department (also known as the 7th Department) by the then Police Chief Valery Osipyan and served until September 2019, when he was dismissed.  

Hetq wrote that, according to information we obtained, Sedrakyan and his wife, Ida Yeghiazaryan, sold their apartment in the Al Dana 1 building in the International City district of Dubai in 2014, and then bought an apartment in the Al Hatimi residential building on the artificial island of Palm Jumeirah in the same year (see below).

According to new data at our disposal, the area of ​​the house purchased by Babken Sedrakyan in Palm Jumeirah is 147 square meters, with an 18 square meter balcony. However, according to Dubai cadastre data, this apartment is currently neither registered in the name of Sedrakyan nor his wife.

In February 2020, a criminal case was initiated, which, however, related to former Prosperous Armenia Party MP Hrant Davtyan and his son. Hetq’s 2018 article also referred to Davtyan’s Dubai property.

While examining the material on the Davtyans, the Special Investigation Service investigator decided, on September 15, 2020, to initiate a new criminal case. It related to Babken Sedrakyan's failure to declare substantial amounts of property in his 2018 financial declaration upon assuming office.

The Prosecutor General's Office, based on the confidentiality of the preliminary investigation, does not say what specific property Sedrakyan did not declare, and whether this also includes the Dubai house.

Part 2 of Article 314.3 of Armenia’s Criminal Code of Armenia, adopted in 2003, provides for two-four years imprisonment for failure to declare property in particularly substantial amounts. In certain cases, the guilty can also be deprived of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for a maximum period of three years.

The same investigator, on the same day of launching a new criminal case, decided to merge the case involving Sedrakyan with that of the Davtyans case and to examine it in general proceedings. In April 2021, the Davtyans' portion was removed and, after the prosecutor confirmed the charges, it was sent to court in May, where, however, as we have already written, it was dismissed, since the statute of limitations had expired.

So, what happened to the portion involving Babken Sedrakyan, which never reached the court?

One overall proceeding regarding the property of former officials

Armenia’s Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) has informed Hetq that the proceedings regarding Sedrakyan have been merged with a proceeding ongoing in the Anti-Corruption Committee.  

This proceeding is based on our second article, published in April 2023, about several former Armenian officials who acquired real estate in Dubai but failed to declare it.

The PGO had sent this article to the Investigative Committee, where on May 25, 2023, criminal proceedings were initiated under Article 296, Part 3, Clause 3 of the Criminal Code, namely, money laundering, committed in particularly large amounts (exceeding 10 million drams), is punishable by six-twelve years in prison.

In other words, that portion of the case of not declaring property was not initially included in the criminal proceedings. However, during the preliminary investigation, the investigator of the Investigative Committee initiated new criminal proceedings under Part 2 of Article 444 of the Criminal Code. It concerns the failure to declare property or income or expenses of a particularly large amount (exceeding one million drams), which is punishable by three-six years of imprisonment.

The proceedings for not declaring property were merged into the money laundering proceedings in the Investigative Committee. The proceedings related to Babken Sedrakyan were also merged into it. This general proceeding, as we learned from the PGO, was sent from the Investigative Committee to the Anti-Corruption Committee in accordance with the rules of investigative subordination.

To date, a preliminary investigation is underway in the Anti-Corruption Committee. No one has been named as a defendant.

Top photo: tui.co.uk