THE STORY OF A DECLARED BRIBE
Lragir.am
05 Sept 06
The Ministry of Environmental Protection cancelled the license of
Global Gold Mining Company to explore the mine of Marjan, stated
Vardan Aivazyan, the minister of environmental protection September
5. He said the license was cancelled because the company failed to
implement the contract liabilities on exploration of the mine.
The license gave rise to a real scandal. Vardan Aivazyan is said
to have demanded a bribe of 3 million dollars from the leadership
of Global Gold Mining, namely the manager of the company, American
Armenian businessman Van Grigoryan. There was information that their
talk was recorded and the tape was extended to the president of
Armenia. It was mentioned that John Evans did it. The minister of
environmental protection announced that he did not demand a bribe,
therefore there can be no recording. The U.S. Embassy also refuted
the fact of a recording. However, only some sources state that
the U.S. ambassador handed the recording to the president. Other
sources said that the recording was extended to Robert Kocharyan by an
authoritative American Armenian businessman, who has close relations
with Van Grigoryan. With regard to this Victor Soghomonyan, the speaker
of Robert Kocharyan announced that he did not know anything about
this recording. It is notable that the speaker did not announce that
the president did not get such a recording, he only said he did not
know anything. Consequently, either he hinted that president could
have got such a recording or Robert Kocharyan does not have secrets
from Victor Soghomonyan.