Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of Armenian-related top news as of 16.04.2020:

·       The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has reached 1,159 in Armenia, another death has been reported.

According to the latest data, 358 COVID-19 patients have recovered so far, whereas 18 others have died in Armenia from the disease.

As the health ministry’s spokesperson Alina Nikoghosyan noted, “the 73-year-old patient had the coronavirus disease, confirmed double pneumonia. The man also had concomitant chronic illnesses: ischemic heart disease, arterial hypertension.”

·       Two Diaspora Armenians died from the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, arevelk. am wrote.

Ardavazt (Arto) Boghossian and Ara Teller died in Beirut and Istanbul, respectively.

The number of Armenians who died of COVID-19 in Istanbul has reached 7, and the number of Armenians who died in Beirut of this disease has reached 3.

·       Armenian third president, Serzh Sargsyan, took part in the meeting of the Armenian parliament Inquiry Committee for Examining the Circumstances of the Military Activities of April 2016.

Before agreeing to attend this meeting, however, Sargsyan had posited several preconditions to this committee. And the committee met the ex-president’s condition, and he will receive the video recording of his portion in this meeting.

As Sargsyan told reporters, the time has come and he is ready to answer all the questions.

According to his statement, he is going to look directly into the eyes of the committee members and say what he knows and, also, what he thinks.

·       A charge was brought on April 13 against Vicar of the Araratian Patriarchal Diocese, Archbishop Navasard Ktchoyan.

Based on the factual data, back in 2010, accomplices persuaded a certain entrepreneur to invest a large sum in a case involving allegedly owned diamond mines in Africa. AMD 11.442.068.000 was lured from the entrepreneur, the right to property, the property were mortgaged and more loans worth $ 9 million and AMD 361.500.000 have been received. A company registered in the offshore zone was used for money laundering, 33% of which belonged to the vicar.

A signature to not leave the country has been selected as a pre-trial measure against Ktchoyan.

Vicar doesn’t accept the charge brought against him and says the case is phony, Ktchoyan’s attorney Hovik Arsenyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am. Ktchoyan is the only person involved as an accused on trial.

·       The Armenian parliament has adopted in the second and final reading a controversial draft law on the confiscation of illegal property.

According to the authorities, the adoption of the law will enable the competent authority, the Prosecutor General’s Office to study the lawfulness of the acquisition of property and submit a claim demanding the confiscation of this property if it is discovered that the acquired property is not justified by sources of income, and the value of which currently exceeds the threshold of AMD 50 million.