2024-04-07 14:57:54
The General Prosecutor’s Office issued a message stating:
“On January 30, 2020, the president of the “Figure Skating Federation of Armenia” public organization M.S. (the position is suspended) signed an agreement with the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, based on which: “The championships and international events of the Republic of Armenia 13 million 7 thousand 200 drams were allocated to the Federation in order to implement the event “preparation of athletes and conduct of championships to ensure participation”.
MS, after some of the annual events of 2020 were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, submitted to the Ministry false information about the expenses of 1 million 50 thousand AMD from the above amount, according to which 1 million 50 thousand AMD was spent from December 1, 2020 until December 25 for holding a training session organized for three athletes of the Figure Skating team and their coaches at the rink of the “Educational-Sports Complex” facility of PJSC “Gazprom Armenia”. Meanwhile, the said meeting did not take place.
In addition, on December 4, 2020 and on October 10, 2021, M.S. submitted to the Ministry untrue data that allegedly coaches E.D. (Federation President M.S. son) and A.A. were figure skaters, participants in international tournaments, personal trainers of dance couple T.K. and S.S. As a result, in connection with taking the 17th place of the 2020 European Figure Skating Championship, the Ministry granted the son of M.S., ED, a nominal pension for a period of 1 year in the amount of 630 thousand drams.
Then, on September 21-25, 2021, at the International Figure Skating Tournament held in Oberstdorf, Germany, the dance couple T.K. and S.S. received a rating for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. as the head coach of the figure skating team and in connection with the same acquisition as a personal coach, from January 1, 2022 to December 2022, 5 million 250 thousand AMD was allocated. From January 1, 2022 to December 2022 inclusive, 3 million 360 thousand drams were allocated to A.A., who acted as the second coach. From January to October 2022, AA transferred 180 thousand drams out of the 280 thousand drams allocated to him every month to the bank account of the president of the Federation M.S.
Thus, the president of the “Figure Skating Federation of Armenia” NGO M.S. stole a particularly large amount from the state: a total of 10 million 290 thousand drams, of which 5 million 880 drams were with the help of his son, coach E.D., and 3 million 360 thousand with the help of coach A.A.
On October 13, 2023, the public prosecutor initiated a public criminal prosecution against M.S. in accordance with Article 179, Part 2, Clauses 1 and 3 of the Criminal Code adopted on 18.04.2003 (using the official position, on a large scale embezzlement or waste), part 3, item 1 of Article 178 (especially large-scale fraud) and part 1 of Article 325 (falsification, realization or use of documents, forms) (section 2).
On October 20, 2023, the prosecutor confirmed the indictment regarding MS and the latter’s son ED and handed it over to the Anti-Corruption Court together with the proceedings.