YEREVAN. – According to the information received from the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia, it is not possible to grant the petition of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia to extradite Mihran Poghosyan—Armenia’s Compulsory Enforcement Service of Judicial Orders former head and ex-MP—from Russia to Armenia for criminal prosecution. Arevik Khachatryan, head of the public relations division of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia, has informed this in a statement.

As per this statement, the granting of the aforesaid petition was not considered possible on the basis of the provisions of Article 19 of the Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters.

Under the abovementioned article, as grounds for refusing to seek legal aid in whole, or in part, is provided for cases where the provision of such assistance may undermine the sovereignty or security of the requested—in this specific case, discussing the extradition petition—or run counter to its legislation.

According to the aforesaid statement, however, no clear information was presented on the specific grounds for refusing the petition for extraditing Poghosyan. 

Based on the abovementioned, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia has proposed to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia to provide clear information on the reasons for refusing Mihran Poghosyan’s extradition.

Mihran Poghosyan is charged in Armenia with involvement in an offshore scandal and money laundering.

On April 15, a capital city Yerevan ruled that Poghosyan be remanded in custody for two months.

He was declared wanted.

Subsequently, Poghosyan was detained in Russia, and a process had begun to extradite him to Armenia.

But Mihran Poghosyan sought political asylum from Russia.