Former Armenian culture minister convicted in fraud case

Armenia’s former Minister of Culture, Hasmik Poghosyan, has been sentenced to four years and six months in prison after being found guilty of abuse of office and aiding large-scale fraud. However, she has been released from serving the sentence under a general amnesty, the Prosecutor General’s Office said on Saturday.

The Anti-Corruption Criminal Court ruled on 6 November 2025 that Poghosyan, who served as culture minister from 2012 to 2016, had misused her official powers to assist a criminal group in fraudulently seizing a 300-square-metre plot of land. The land had originally been granted for free use to the Pyotr Tchaikovsky Secondary Music School in Yerevan.

As part of related civil proceedings, ownership of a 235.8-square-meter area within a building complex at 36/3 Koghbatsi Street in central Yerevan has been returned to the Armenian state.

Criminal proceedings against Poghosyan were launched in September 2023, and her case was transferred to the Anti-Corruption Court the following month.

Although the court found her guilty and imposed a prison sentence, it also applied a 2018 amnesty law adopted to mark Yerevan’s 2,800th anniversary and the 100th anniversary of Armenia’s First Republic. The verdict has now entered into legal force.