In Moscow, Levon Airapetyan's home arrest extended until April 19

Today, the Basmanny District Court in Moscow has extended, until April 19, 2015, the home arrest of Levon Airapetyan, a businessmen and a member of the Armenian Diaspora in Russia, who is under investigation in the case of Bashneft company.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Levon Airapetyan was detained on July 15 at the Moscow "Domodedovo" Airport. He is suspected of embezzling and laundering of criminal money, as well as of involvement in driving  Bashneft out of state control. On July 17, by a court ruling he was put in custody for two months. On October 3, the businessman was transferred to home arrest.

The today's session was held without the defendant, since he was hospitalized with a diagnosis of bladder cancer.

Today, the investigation party has motivated its petition on extending the home arrest by the fact that the inquiry is not over yet, while the grounds for Airapetyan's arrest have not ceased to exist and have not changed, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

In its turn, the defence has treated the petition as unjustified, arguing that Airapetyan's freedom restriction may be changed from the home arrest to somewhat less stringent. As a result, the prosecution's petition was upheld by the court.

As noted by the advocate Rudolf Ambartsumov in his speech in the courtroom, his client falls under the economic amnesty, adopted by the State Duma, the RAPSI reports.

"The only precondition here is to compensate the damage caused to the state," said the defender, noting that Airapetyan himself had caused no damage, since the ICRF has sued for damage compensation not Airapetyan but the Company named AFK "Sistema".

Airapetyan's detention has caused a great resonance in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, where, as the "Caucasian Knot" has reported, they organized collection of signatures to the petition demanding his release. The parliament and government of Nagorno-Karabakh spoke in support of Airapetyan.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.