POCKETBOOK POLITICS: REGIME TARGETS BUSINESS INTERESTS OF SUKIASYAN FAMILY
Ararat Davtyan

iasyan/
2010/03/08 | 15:22

First "Bjni" now "Byuregh": Authorities seek to cripple opposition
supporters

Khachatur Sukiasyan supported the candidacy of Levon Ter-Petrosyan
in the 2008 presidential elections and has paid the price.

Even though he was "granted" his freedom after coming out of hiding,
the preliminary investigation in his case continues. Then too,
criminal charges were levied against his brother, Saribek Sukiasyan,
just last month. This development, however, has more to do with the
attempt to strip the family of their assets and property.

MP Ruben Hayrapetyan – no love lost with Sukiasyans

Ruben Hayrapetyan, President of the Armenian Football Federation
and a Republican Party MP, has played a pretty significant role in
this property seizure process. Mr. Hayrapetyan confesses that for
many years, especially during the days of the first president, his
relations with Khachatur Sukiasyan have been strained.

When the government put the "Bjni" mineral water company, owned by
the Sukiasyan family, up for auction, the sole bidder turned out to
be Ruben Hayrapetyan, who finally managed to "purchase" the company
late last year.

A year ago, at a press conference on the subject, Ruben Hayrapetyan
advised those who were speaking from a position of morality to take a
look back at the 1990’s and see the methods employed by the Sukiasyan
family to amass their assets, including the "Bjni" plant.

"Let all the do-gooders take a good look and see how their beloved
Sukiasyan’s purchased or grabbed what they now own. Was what they
did moral? If the Sukiasyan’s accept the fact that what they did
was immoral, then I have done the same," said Mr. Hayrapetyan. "Let
us not politicize the issue. In a year’s time we will see if it was
political or economic."

The past year has shown that MP Hayrapetyan, based on economic
interests, wishes to purchase especially those factories that belong
to the Sukiasyan family.

Gor Vardanyan and the alleged gun threat

One year after the interview mentioned, on February 12, 2010, law
enforcement officials raided the offices of Sil Group and took into
custody, Saribek Sukiasyan, Chairman of the Board of HayEconomBank,
and Artash Stepanyan, Director of the Ayrarat Marketplace. The
official explanation for the raid is that Gor Vardanyan, Director
of Audit Ltd. allegedly sent an SMS message to his friend claiming
that "Sukiasyan and Artash threatened to kill him unless he signed
certain documents."

Days later, Yerevan police Chief Nerses Nazaryan announced that Gor
Davtyan originally had said that a gun was used to threaten him and
that was why the indictment included the use of a weapon. However,
at present, when Davtyan has refused to testify about any gun, the
police removed mention of a weapon from the official indictment.

Saribek Sukiasyan’s lawyer, Yervand Varosyan, says, "We are dealing
with a case of shady manipulation. They take testimony from one guy
and start an investigation on that testimony alone. An indictment is
prepared and a man is arrested."

Sukiasyan and Stepanyan were freed three days after being arrested.

They had to sign an affidavit that they wouldn’t flee the country.

They have been charged with the crime of "involvement in a premeditated
group conspiracy to imprison another for personal gain" They face a
3-5 year sentence if found guilty.

Police Chief Nazaryan also stated that when law enforcement arrived
on the scene they found Saribek Sukiasyan, Artashes Stepanyan and
Gor Davtyan in the locked Sil Group office. The police also say they
confiscated the documents Vardanyan was being forced to sign.

Sukiasyan defense lawyers, Lusineh Sahakyan and Yervand Varosyan,
have already made the video tapes of the office security cameras
available to the press. The photos show Gor Vardanyan calmly leaving
the Sil office.

"So it turns out that Police Chief Nazaryan circulated information that
can only be described as false. Either the city police are deceiving
the investigative unit or else, knowing the facts, they are trying to
deceive the public. In both cases, the police aren’t acting correctly,"
says attorney Lusineh Sahakyan.

Saribek Sukiasyan: "The bandits will never win"

"The criminal case was formulated on fabrications. The aim is to
deprive us of our new plant and to smear our good name. The political
motivations for this are known to all," Saribek Sukiasyan said in his
public statement. "I would like to inform all, that no one will be
able to strip us from our property or break our spirit by conducting
such a false criminal case or by launching an indictment against us. I
hope that time will never come when we will be forced to publish all
the names of the bandit group that wishes to steal away our assets.

The only thing that guides our actions is a business approach."

According to the police statement, Gor Vardanyan, who owns 41% of
the Byuregh CJSC stock, sold stock worth 105.7 million AMD to Aspram
Tonoyan, the wife of Saribek Sukiasyan, in October, 2008. However,
about one year later, the Court of Cassation deemed the transaction
null and void, after which a new stockholder appeared in the CJSC
who expressed a desire to buy the shares he owes.

The statement reads, "It was to inform Saribek Sukiasyan of this
that prompted Gor Davtyan to visit the Sil Group office and where
Saribek Sukiasyan and Artash Stepanyan forced him to sign certain
shareholder documents."

The police did not publish the name of the new shareholder in
Byuregh, who, it turned out later, was in fact Ruben Hayrapetyan. The
attorneys argue that what actually happen is the exact opposite of
the police version of the story. Accordingly, on February 11, Gor
Davtyan telephoned attorney Ara Zohrabyan and told him that Ruben
Hayrapetyan threatened him and took him to the police station and the
prosecutor’s office, where he was pressured into selling the Byuregh
shares not to the Sukiasyans but to Hayrapetyan.

"Gor Vardanyan refused and telephoned attorney Ara Zohrabyan and
requested a meeting with Sukiasyan’ probably expecting his assistance.

Sukiasyan meets with Davtyan who, trembling, recounts what has
happened and asks Sukiasyan to help in the legal formulation, so
that he can pull out of selling shares to Hayrapetyan," says attorney
Lusineh Sahakyan, adding that Zohrabyan drafts a corresponding letter
addressed to Hayrapetyan in which the legal reasons are underlined
explaining why he can’t purchase the shares.

Prosecution witness Vardanyan has fled Armenia

"In a strange twist, right after this the Sil office is raided. Gor
Vardanyan is taken into custody and held under arrest for several
hours," notes attorney Sahakyan.

"We were in the Erebuni police station till about 5:30 in the morning
on February 13 and there we spotted Gor Davtyan, registered as the
injured party in the case. He was there the whole day. A group of
cops were constantly escorting him from one room to another. They
took him to see the police chief and then to the investigations unit,"
attorney Yervand Varosyan continues.

The defense team notes that Gor Vardanyan is actually an injured party
in the affair and he seemed pretty disconsolate in the police station.

He was sitting with his head in his hands and looking for help. The
lawyers also say that they saw an individual at the station who
absolutely had no right to be there. This mystery man was in the
shadows, following Vardanyan.

"At this time, we cannot publicize the person’s name since it would
throw a wrench in our defense tactics. We know who this person is and
we have irrefutable evidence placing him at the side of the injured
in the police station. We will go public with this in due course,"
says Yervand Varosyan.

The lawyers refuse to say whether this person is in any way connected
to Ruben Hayrapetyan.

They say that have a whole dossier contradicting the police version
of the matter, but that they are not preparing to submit it to law
enforcement right now.

"We understood the sooner we hand over evidence to the preliminary
investigative unit, the more time they have to alter the facts. They
start to get hold of other evidence and fabricate the whole affair."

Ruben Hayrapetyan has so far refused to comment on the case. The
police, according to press reports, are hot on the heels of Gor
Vardanyan, who is said to have fled Armenia after the incidents
described.

P.S. – "On February 22, just ten days after launching a criminal case
against Saribek Sukiasyan and Artash Stepanyan, Ruben Hayrapetyan
purchased (in any event he signed a contract) the Byuregh shares owned
by Gor Davtyan and Robert Harutyunyan. Hayrapetyan thus became a 90%
shareholder of the firm. We believe no further explanation is needed,"
noted attorney Lusineh Sahakyan in her statement.