THE INSURANCE SETTLEMENT OF THE HEIRS OF 1915 ARMENIAN VICTIMS CONTINUES
By Melanya Badalian
AZG Armenian Daily
26/06/2007
Armenian-American attorneys Vardgez Eghiayan, Mark Geragos and Brian
Kabatech, filed a suit against New York Life Insurance Co. in 1999. The
long-running suit was settled for $20 million – a compensation for
the descendants of Armenian victims in 1915.
Now they carry negotiations with French "Axa" company, which agreed
to compensate $17, 5 million to the heirs of the Armenian victims of
the 1915 massacres. $3 million of it will be given to the Armenian
organizations in France.
"Axa" beneficiaries can check their names in
website list until October, 2007.
On May the Armenian-American attorneys will visit Berlin to meet
the representatives of "Deutsche bank", who don’t agree with them on
this issue.
According to French newspaper "Yaraj", the reason is in one-century
silence of Germany on the 1915 Genocide, its fault for it and also
the pressure that Turkey applies.
According to the newspaper this time the pressure is bigger than in
the case of New York Life Insurance Co.
An appeal was filed against another German bank "Drezdner", which is
considered as an appropriator of the sums of Armenian depositors. The
Armenians deposited different valuable things in the cashboxes of
the bank. Thousands of Armenians, who worked on the construction of
Berlin-Baghdad railway, made payments before they were driven away
to Der Zor Desert or just murdered there.
"Deutsche bank" was the general investor and tax-farmer of the
construction of Berlin-Baghdad railway.
The evasion of "Deutsche bank" makes the attorneys to schedule meetings
with the officials of the Ministry of Finance of Germany.
"Yaraj" informs that there is no limitation of time on the persecution
of bank accounts, but the last date for the kept property in the
cashboxes is 2016.
The American attorneys said that "Deutsche bank" is not the last
organization in their mission; they are going to pursue this issue
against 20 other organizations.