The Prosecutor supervising the criminal proceedings, discussing the motions with the same content filed by persons with contributions to different fields for changing the measure of restraint imposed on Sergey Smbatyan, the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, accused under criminal proceedings, adopted a decision on rejecting the mentioned motions.

In this regard, the Prosecutor's Office emphasizes that the grounds and procedure for choosing a measure of restraint against the accused in the preliminary investigation conducted under criminal proceedings and subsequently its change and elimination procedure are defined by the Criminal Procedure Code.

The Prosecutor found that both in the presented motions and in the combination of the factual circumstances obtained at the current stage of the preliminary investigation, it was not confirmed that during the application of the measure of restraint chosen against the accused Sergey Smbatyan, the conditions of the jurisdiction of the measure of restraint are changed or eliminated.

It should be reminded that the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, Sergey Smbatyan, businessman Arman Petrosyan have been accused of particularly large-scale fraud, and Sergey Smbatyan's father, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Armen Smbatyan, has been accused of organizing it. According to the factual data, the organizer of the group, Armen Smbatyan, after receiving information about the criminal proceedings, organized several meetings with the members of the group and warned them to give false statements in the pre-trial authorities. The above case of obstructing the course of criminal proceedings was the basis for concluding that it would be difficult for the defendants to ensure the proper fulfilment of the duties defined by the RA Criminal Procedure Code if choosing alternative means of restriction. Due to this, the authority responsible for preliminary investigation chose the detention as a measure of restraint against the father and son Smbatyans, and businessman Arman Petrosyan.

In such conditions, taking into account the fact that the detention against the accused was chosen as a preventive measure on July 29, 2023, and in the period following it, no such data was obtained which would neutralize the reasonable fears of the authority responsible the proceedings that alternative measures of restraint would not ensure the proper behavior of the accused Sergey Smbatyan, therefore, the need for a measure of restraint  – imprisonment, chosen against the accused continues to exist.

Considering the fact that the applicants did not include their addresses in the motions, the Prosecutor's Office is deprived of the opportunity to provide its decision to the parties, therefore we inform you that a copy of the Supervising Prosecutor's decision will be provided to the applicant(s) if they appear at the Prosecutor General's Office or provide address(es) to the Prosecutor's Office.

Notice:  A person charged with any crime shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty in the manner prescribed by the RA Criminal Procedure Code—by the judgment came into legal force.