YEREVAN, APRIL 11, ARMENPRESS. The decision on introducing or not introducing the institute of confiscating assets without a court sentence (stolen asset recovery) in Armenia cannot be made by one person, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe during a Q&A with MPs.

“We are now discussing in Armenia whether or not the introduction of [stolen asset recovery] can be acceptable for our country, and in this regard there are very serious concerns in Armenia also among the representatives of the former government. I find it highly important to state for the record that this practice is not only an internationally accepted practice, but also basically is within the international obligations assumed by Armenia in 2015, including before the Council of Europe. There is a mention of this mechanism in the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism, the UN Convention on Corruption, and basically Armenia has assumed certain obligations regarding this mechanism. This is a mechanism that can and must be introduced in Armenia. But Armenia is a democratic country and decisions aren’t made by a single person,” the Armenian PM said.

He said cooperation with the Council of Europe over this matter will be very beneficial for Armenia.

“Cooperation with the CoE will be very beneficial, so that no one will try to misinterpret this or use it as a tool for persecution, because that chapter has been irreversibly closed in our country.”

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan