According to an international journalistic investigation conducted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Sarkissian is among current or former officials from around the world and their relatives who have held hidden accounts in Switzerland's second-largest bank, Credit Suisse.
The OCCRP, a nonprofit journalism consortium that partners with dozens of media outlets, released the findings of the investigation, based on a massive data leak, in a weekend report.
The reported said in particular that Sarkissian and his sister Karine kept more than 10 million Swiss francs ($11 million) in Credit Suisse from 2006 through 2016. Sarkissian served as Armenia’s ambassador to Britain from 2013-2018, meaning that he had to declare his assets to an anti-corruption state body. He only admitted having 8 million euros ($10 million) held elsewhere.
Hetq.am, an Armenian media outlet that also took part in the OCCRP investigation, said that Sarkissian confirmed that the money belonged to him and his sister but denied any wrongdoing.
“At that time [Armenian income] declarations were not done electronically and did not require officials to declare concrete bank accounts,” he told the investigative publication. He claimed that he was only obliged to disclose his cash assets.
Haykuhi Harutiunian, the head of the Commission on Prevention of Corruption, denied the claim. “All kinds of financial assets had to be declared,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
A spokesman for the Office of the Prosecutor-General, Gor Abrahamian, said that law-enforcement authorities will closely examine the information. He argued that inaccurate or incomplete asset declarations are a criminal offense in Armenia.
Sarkissian, 68, had lived and worked in London for nearly three decades before becoming Armenia’s largely ceremonial president in 2018. He made a fortune in the 2000s, working as an advisor and middleman for Western corporations doing business in the former Soviet Union.
Sarkissian unexpectedly resigned on January 23, citing a lack of powers vested in the presidency. Hetq.am, claimed that he stepped down because it emerged that he violated a constitutional provision stipulating that the president must have been a citizen of only Armenia for at least six years before taking office.
The publication said that an ongoing investigation conducted by it jointly with the OCCRP has revealed that Sarkissian was a citizen of the Caribbean island country of Saint Kitts and Nevis “not long before being elected president in March 2018.”
Prosecutors instructed Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) to investigate that report. The NSS has not publicized any conclusions so far.
Sarkissian left the country several days before his resignation. In a January 25 statement, the presidential press office reaffirmed the stated reason for the resignation and accused the independent publication of trying to “divert public attention with a false agenda.”