Former Deputy Governor sent to prison for two years
A court in Armenia's Kotayk marz (province) today sentenced Levon Mikaelyan, former Deputy Governor of the marz, to two years in prison.
The accusant earlier motioned the court to sentence the ex-official to 3,3 years in prison, while Mikaelyan motioned for a penalty or a prison term of 3 months.
Levon Mikaelyan was caught red-handed in July 2012 while accepting a bribe worth 40,000 drams from the principal of a local public school. Throughout his tenure in office, Mikaelyan reportedly extorted kickbacks from the heads of secondary schools in Kotayk in return for making sure that their financial operations are not inspected by the provincial administration. The official threatened to "create problems for them" if they refused to pay up.
He served as deputy governor since 2002.
Talking to Pastinfo.am, attorney Vagharshak Gevorgyan said that court had returned an unfair verdict since there were a number of mitigating circumstances; the defendant had pleaded guilty to the accusation, and the investigation had been held in an expedited manner.
