CONFUSION AS POLICE CONFRONT ARMENIAN

Daily Nation , Kenya
March 15 2006

One of the Armenian brothers at the centre of claims and counter
claims by the Government and Orange politicians yesterday refused
to allow police into his rented home and rebuffed their attempts to
persuade him to record a statement.

Mr Artur Margaryan addresses the press outside his house in Nairobi’s
Runda estate yesterday where he lives. Photo by Fredrick Omondi Mr
Artur Margaryan told the squad of eight police officers who went
to his home in Runda, an upmarket Nairobi estate, that they should
either arrest him or produce a search warrant before he could cooperate
with them.

The police, headed by Runda police station boss Jeremiah Langat,
left the house after receiving a telephone call from a senior officer
ordering them to return to their base.

The eight had gone to House 977 on Glory Road, off Runda Grove, as
an advance team to provide security for detectives investigating the
activities of Mr Margaryan and his brother, Mr Artur Sargsyan.

Mr Margaryan was to have been interviewed by Nairobi deputy
provincial CID chief Isaiah Osugo, who was appointed last week by
police commissioner Mohamed Hussein Ali to investigate claims by
Lang’ata MP Raila Odinga that the brothers were mercenaries.

Mr Osugo did not go to the house after his advance team was denied
entry.

However, Mr Margaryan later emerged from the compound and chatted with
journalists as Mr Langat, his deputy and three armed police officers
in uniform returned to the house. When Mr Margaryan saw the officers,
he cut short his impromptu Press conference and called someone on
the mobile phone who rushed to open the compound gate.

During his brief talk to the journalists outside his gate, Mr Margaryan
confirmed the police had gone to his house in the morning and that
he would neither leave nor allow the police into the house unless
they had either an arrest warrant for him or a search warrant.

Mr Margaryan repeated his claims that he had in the past met Mr
Odinga. He said it was between December 13 and 15, last year in Dubai,
when he allegedly gave him the equivalent of Sh100,000 in UAE currency
(dirham), to spend as he wished.

He said his brother would be returning to Kenya next week.

He went on: “I will go to court as well as demand protection from
the Government because it was my right to ask for protection.”

Mr Margaryan acknowledged that his company Brotherlink International
Ltd had entered into a contract in January this year to rent the
house. His company was involved in various businesses including car
imports, electronics and real estate.

He further denied having ever visited State House or having met any
senior police officers.

Meanwhile, State House last night warned Mr Odinga against dragging
the presidency into the mercenary claims.

It said in a statement that allegations that the two men alleged
to be mercenaries had visited State House on two occasions in the
recent past were part of a “propaganda war” by Mr Odinga and other
politicians in the ODM .

Asked who allowed him and his brother to hold a Press conference at the
VIP lounge at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Mr Margaryan
claimed it was the journalists themselves who had diverted them to
the lounge as they were walking to the first class lounge.

But when journalists, some of whom were at the Press conference
protested they did not have such powers, he contradicted himself,
saying it was his lawyers Mr Antony Macharia and Mr Fred Ngatia who
had arranged the Press conference.

Mr Macharia, who had arrived earlier, declined to comment. He
also refused to say where or when a Press conference promised by
Mr Margaryan would take place saying he could do that only after
receiving instructions from him.

Asked to explain why his brother’s particulars were missing from the
passenger manifest on the flight he claimed he had taken from Dubai to
Kenya, he said all passengers from Arab countries used their mothers’
names and not their own or their fathers’.

He promised to avail the manifest during the forthcoming Press
conference.

After his brief chat with the journalists, Mr Margaryan returned to
his compound and later drove off in a dark blue Subaru whose number
plates were hidden behind strips of cardboard. He was accompanied by
a woman who on Monday he claimed was his bodyguard.