Friday,
European Court Accepts Appeal By Indicted Armenian Tycoon
• Sargis Harutyunyan
France - The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, January 24, 2018.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Armenian law-enforcement
authorities to enable a prominent businessman prosecuted on corruption charges
to receive adequate medical care.
Lawyers for the millionaire businessman, Samvel Mayrapetian, seized upon the
decision on Friday to again demand that he be allowed to undergo such treatment
in Germany.
Mayrapetian was arrested in October on charges of “assisting in bribery” which
he strongly denies. He was freed on bail late last month and has remained in
hospital since then, reportedly suffering from a life-threatening form of
pancreatitis.
Immediately after his release, Mayrapetian asked Armenia’s Special
Investigative Service (SIS) for permission to leave for Germany, saying through
his lawyers that Armenian hospitals cannot cure his disease. The SIS rejected
the request, leading the tycoon to appeal to the ECHR.
The Strasbourg-based court accepted the appeal late on Thursday. It said that
the Armenian authorities must allow Mayrapetian to undergo the kind of
treatment that is recommended by his doctors. It gave the authorities 15 days
to report back to the ECHR on their compliance with its order.
Armenia - Businessman Samvel Mayrapetian at the official opening of his Toyota
car dealership in Yerevan, 23 June 2009.
One of Mayrapetian’s lawyers, Karen Batikian, insisted on Friday that his
medical condition is effectively treated only at a special clinic located in
the German city of Dresden. Batikian said he has therefore again asked the SIS
to allow his client’s departure to Germany.
“I insist that Samvel Mayrapetian wants to travel to Germany for solely medical
reasons and will return to Armenia and participate in all investigative and
judicial proceedings after his treatment is complete,” Batikian told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service.
The SIS did not immediately react to the ECHR order.
The law-enforcement agency has still not publicized details of the accusations
leveled against the tycoon who had greatly benefited from close ties with
Armenia’s former governments.
Mayrapetian, 59, one of the country’s leading real estate developers who also
owns a national TV channel and a car dealership. His company was involved in a
controversial redevelopment of old districts in downtown Yerevan during the
1998-2008 rule of former President Robert Kocharian. Some media outlets for
years linked Kocharian’s elder son Sedrak to the Toyota dealership.
Kocharian is currently held in pretrial detention, having been charged in
connection with the deadly breakup of post-election opposition protests in
March 2008. He denies the accusations as politically motivated.
Kocharian’s Detention Extended
• Anush Mkrtchian
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian gives an interview to the Russian
NTV channel, Yerevan, 28Aug2018
A court in Yerevan on Friday refused to grant bail to former Armenian President
Robert Kocharian and allowed law-enforcement to hold him in pretrial detention
for two more months.
Kocharian was again arrested on December 7 more than four months after being
charged with overthrowing the constitutional order during the final weeks of
his decade-long rule that ended in April 2008. He denies the accusations as
politically motivated.
Earlier this month the Special Investigative Service (SIS) asked the court of
first instance to extend Kocharian’s arrest. The court granted the request. It
also rejected a petition to free Kocharian on bail which was submitted by his
lawyers.
One of the lawyers, Aram Orbelian, told reporters that they will likely appeal
against the ruling. He also did not rule out another appeal to the European
Court of Human Rights.
Orbelian again accused the authorities of exerting pressure on this and other
Armenian courts dealing with the high-profile case. He pointed to SIS chief
Sasun Khachatrian’s and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s leaked phone
conversations with the Artur Vanetsian, the director of the National Security
Service (NSS), which were posted on the Internet last year.
Vanetsian can be heard saying in those audio clips that he told a judge to
allow Kocharian’s first arrest in July. The NSS chief claims that the audio was
doctored and that he never issued orders to the judge.
Kocharian is specifically accused of illegally using Armenian army units
against opposition supporters who protested against alleged fraud in a disputed
presidential election held in February 2008. Law-enforcement authorities say
that amounted to an overthrow of the constitutional order.
Eight protesters and two policemen were killed when security forces quelled the
protests on March 1-2, 2008. Kocharian declared a three-week state of emergency
on that night.
The 64-year-old ex-president says the accusations are part of Pashinian’s
political “vendetta” waged against him.
Pashinian played a key role in the 2008 protests and spent nearly two years in
prison because of that. He has strongly defended the criminal case against
Kocharian and denied orchestrating it.
Ex-Minister Denies Corruption Charges
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Environment Minister Aram Harutiunian speaks at a news briefing in
Yerevan, 30Jan2012.
Former Environment Minister Aram Harutiunian denied through a lawyer on Friday
corruption accusations brought against him by an Armenian law-enforcement body.
The lawyer, Karen Hakobian, said that Harutiunian has not fled Armenia but
refused to shed more light on his whereabouts after a Yerevan court issued an
arrest warrant for him. Nor did Hakobian say whether his client will surrender
to the Special Investigative Service (SIS) following the court’s decision.
The SIS formally charged Harutiunian on Thursday with receiving $14 million in
bribes while in office in 2008. It reiterated prosecutors’ recent allegations
that an Armenian businesswoman, Silva Hambardzumian, paid the bribes in return
for obtaining a dozen mining licenses from the Ministry of Environment
Protection.
Hambardzumian made the same claims when she spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian service
(Azatutyun.am) in late October.
Hakobian dismissed the charges as “nonsensical.” “Those licenses were never of
any use to anyone,” he said, adding that nobody would have paid millions of
dollars for the right to search for, rather than mine, metals in several
potential deposits in Armenia.
“I think that the investigation will continue and these accusations will be
refuted,” the lawyer told journalists.
Hakobian also said that the former minister was not allowed to travel abroad
recently, before being indicted by the SIS. “Mr. Harutiunian wanted to leave
the country for the purpose of his wife’s medical treatment but his departure
was illegally blocked at the border checkpoint [of Yerevan’s Zvartnots
airport,]” he said.
Harutiunian served as environment minister from 2007-2014 and was elected to
the Armenian parliament in 2017 on then President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican
Party’s ticket. The prosecutors attempted to arrest him in early December. The
outgoing parliament, in which the Republicans had the largest group, declined
to lift Harutiunian’s immunity from prosecution.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian clearly referred to Harutiunian when he stated
in late October that law-enforcement authorities have all but solved the
largest ever known case of bribery in Armenia’s history.
Serzh Sarkisian Said To Stay In Politics
Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian attends a parliament session in Yerevan,
May 31, 2012.
Former President Serzh Sarkisian has no plans to retire from active politics or
resign as chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), an HHK spokesman
indicated late on Friday.
Eduard Sharmazanov insisted that Sarkisian did not leave the political arena
when he stepped down as Armenia’s prime minister in April amid mass protests
against his continued rule.
“There is no such issue on our agenda,” Sharmazanov told reporters when asked
about possible changes in the leadership of the former ruling party.
“[Sarkisian] is the chairman of our party. We had elected him, our congress had
elected him. The president still has something to say and to do,” he said after
a meeting of the HHK’s governing board chaired by Sarkisian.
Sharmazanov made clear in that regard that the HHK is planning to hold its next
congress in 2020, rather than this spring, as was suggested by some senior
party figures earlier.
Sarkisian, who governed Armenia for ten years, has made very few public
statements and appearances since his dramatic resignation which came two weeks
before the protest leader, Nikol Pashinian, was elected the country’s prime
minister. The protest movement was sparked by Sarkisian’s attempt to extend his
decade-long rule after Armenia’s transformation into a parliamentary republic
engineered by him.
ARMENIA -- A man covered with a national flag waves an opened bottle of a
sparkling wine celebrating Armenian Prime Minister's Serzh Sarkisian's
resignation in Republic Square in Yerevan, April 23, 2018
Sarkisian did not run in snap parliamentary elections held on December 9. The
HHK’s list of election candidates was headed by former Defense Minister Vigen
Sargsian. Some observers suggested that the latter could soon replace the
ex-president as HHK leader.
According to official election results, the HHK won only 4.7 percent of the
vote, narrowly failing to clear the 5 percent threshold to enter the new
parliament. Pashinian’s My Step bloc got as much as 70 percent.
Also, the new authorities brought embarrassing corruption charges against
Sarkisian’s former chief bodyguard and one of his two brothers. The other
brother had his $30 million Armenian bank account frozen by the National
Security Service last summer. Pashinian demanded afterwards that Aleksandr
Sarkisian “return the money to the state budget.”
“While Pashinian fought against us, we don’t fight against him,” said
Sharmazanov. “We fight against policies which we believe do not serve the
security of Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).”
Sharmazanov claimed that Pashinian’s government has made “many mistakes” since
taking office in May. In particular, he denounced its plans to downsize the
state bureaucracy by reducing the number of government ministries.
Press Review
“Zhoghovurd” reports on Human Rights Watch’s latest report which criticized the
former Armenian government but praised the current authorities in Yerevan. The
paper says HRW at the same time warned the latter to ensure the due process of
law in the renewed criminal investigation into the May 2008 violence in
Yerevan. “That is to say that international structures will be monitoring the
course of the March 1 probe,” it says. “In this regard, the new authorities
must bring their actions into conformity with the letter and the spirit of the
law in order, first and foremost, to prevent any damage to Armenia’s
reputation.”
Lragir.am reports on “interesting statements” made at the Dashnaktsutyun’s
ongoing convention taking place in Nagorno-Karabakh. In particular, the
longtime head of the party’s decision-making Bureau, Hrant Markarian, announced
his resignation earlier this week. “Markarian described his resignation as an
act of ‘tactical flexibility,’ which means that he will try to have the party
led by a faction controlled by him,” writes the publication. “An Armenian media
report has said that Markarian is promoting Armen Rustamian and a pro-Russian
faction. But there may be a revolution in Dashnaktsutyun that will see people
acting in Armenia’s, not in Russia’s, Iran’s or others’, interests elected to
the Bureau … There is a political vacuum in Armenia. [Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s] My Step alliance does not have healthy counterweights, and the
country needs a mature political force that can shoulder responsibility for
opposing [the government.]”
“Hraparak” comments on corruption charges brought against former Environment
Minister Aram Harutiunian. The paper fears that Harutiunian has fled the
country. It claims that the authorities ignored its recent warnings about such
a possibility.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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