On the occasion of the RA Anti-corruption Committee's Worker's Day and the second anniversary of the formation of the structure, an event has been organized today, which was attended by RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, RA Supreme Judicial Council Chairman Karen Andreasyan, Director of the RA National Security Service Armen Abazyan, RA Minister of Internal Affairs Vahe Ghazaryan, RA Justice Minister Grigor Minasyan, RA Prosecutor General Anna Vardapetyan, Chairman of the RA Investigation Committee Argishti Kyaramyan and Head of the RA State Control Service Romanos Petrosyan.

RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan congratulated on the establishment of the Anti-Corruption Committee and thanked all the employees of the Anti-Corruption Committee for their work. "I hope that we will really justify the legitimate and legal expectations that the public, RA citizens have from the anti-corruption system in general and from the Anti-Corruption Committee in particular," said the head of the government.

The Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee of RA, Sasun Khachatryan, referring to the work done in the direction of the formation and establishment of the structure and the recorded achievements, characterized the past two years as the period of establishment of the structure, noting that the newly created law enforcement body is already fully implementing its functions today. According to Sasun Khachatryan, the summary of the work done in the 9 months of 2023 and the analysis of the statistics of corruption crimes give grounds to claim that there is tangible progress in the field of detection and investigation of crimes of this nature.

The chairman of the committee presented the statistical indicators of the examined criminal proceedings, noting that during the 9 months of 2023, 1088 cases of corruption crimes were recorded in the Republic of Armenia, compared to 606 cases in the same period of the previous year, that is to say, the increase was 482 cases, or 79.5 percent. In general, according to the data of 9 months, 1498 criminal proceedings were examined in the committee, compared to 861 proceedings for the same period last year, that is to say, the cases in the proceedings increased by 637 or 74 percent.

As for the criminal proceedings sent to the court with an indictment, during the past 9 months, 134 criminal proceedings were sent to the court regarding 286 persons, compared to 68 proceedings for the same period of the previous year /regarding 166 persons/, that is to say, the number of proceedings sent to the court with an indictment in the reporting period  compared to 9 months of the previous year,  increased by 66 or by 97 percent, and the number of people sued- by 120 or by 72 percent. "According to the textbook rule of legal statistics, when assessing the crime situation, the increase in latent crimes, such as corruption crimes, should be considered as a positive phenomenon, that is to say, in this case, we are not dealing with a real increase in corruption cases, as may be misunderstood, but with increasing the efficiency of the works in this field", said Sasun Khachatryan. However, the chairman of the committee explained this increase in the detection of crimes of a corruption nature not only by increasing the efficiency of the structure, but also by three main prerequisites: improving the activities of law enforcement agencies, increasing public confidence in law enforcement agencies, as well as by the fact that, that the employees of the state and local self-governing bodies  speak more often about the present corruption phenomena within the body or in their interactions with citizens.

Referring to the restored amounts, the chairman of the committee noted that property damage caused as a result of criminal proceedings completed this year amounted to 12,297,149,000 AMD, of which 110,713,000 AMD were restored during the preliminary investigation and an arrest was imposed on  property of 12,342,032,000 AMD. "I should note that we are talking only about property damage and restoration in completed cases, and at the current stage the amount restored in unfinished proceedings is 982,297,000 AMD, that is to say, in the reporting period, the amount restored on cases present in  proceedings was 1,093,011,000 AMD. We had the last restoration on October 17, 280,254,000 AMD were restored on one criminal proceeding," said Sasun Khachatryan. According to him, during the reporting period, a lot of work was also done and good indicators were recorded by the operative-intelligence subdivision of the committee, so it is expected that the results will be more impressive with a full staffing of the operative-intelligence subdivision and increasing the level of technical saturation of continuous training.

Expressing his gratitude to the RA Prime Minister and the RA Government, Sasun Khachatryan assured that the Committee will continue to do everything within its powers to ensure the rule of law and to have a corruption-free country.

On the occasion of conscientious and efficient work, as well as the Anti-corruption Committee employee's day and the second anniversary of the organization's formation, the Committee's employees were awarded with medals, souvenirs and certificates of honor.