The court on Friday denied the defense's motion to lift the attachment on the property of Armenia’s third president Serzh Sargsyan, in connection with a criminal case involving him and several other defendants.

In its motion, the defense had argued that the investigator's decision to place an attachment on Sargsyan's property was illegal, clearly unfounded, and unreasoned. "During the attachment of the property, many articles of the Criminal Procedure Code—regulating the application of the given measure of judicial enforcement—were violated," the defense had stated.

According to the indictment of the aforesaid criminal case, being organized by then President Serzh Sargsyan, then Minister of Agriculture Sergo Karapetyan had squandered—from January 25 to February 7, 2013—AMD 489,160,310 of subsidy allocated from the government's reserve fund for the 15,391,765 liters of diesel fuel that was used during the implementation of state assistance programs.

Serzh Sargsyan has been charged under the Criminal Code article on large-scale embezzlement or squandering.

The third president, however, does not accept the charge against him. And his lawyer Amram Makinyan claims that the charge is concocted.