Monday,
Armenian Businessman Arrested Amid Protests
• Artak Khulian
Armenia -- Riot police clash in Yerevan with employees of the Spayka company
protesting against the arrest of its chief executive, Davit Ghazarian, April 4,
2019.
Riot police clashed with scores of employees of Armenia’s leading food
producing and exporting company on Monday after its official owner, Davit
Ghazarian, was arrested on tax evasion charges strongly denied by him.
The State Revenue Committee (SRC) said on Friday that the Spayka company evaded
over 7 billion drams ($14.4 million) in taxes in 2015-2016. Ghazarian, who is
also Spayka’s chief executive, was quick to reject the claims as baseless,
saying the SRC moved to arrest him after he refused to pay the alleged back
taxes.
A district court in Yerevan allowed the SRC to arrest Ghazarian pending
investigation as several hundred Spayka workers demonstrated outside the court
building. They said they fear losing their jobs as a result of the criminal
proceedings.
The angry protesters responded to the court decision by blocking an adjacent
street in the city center. They then surrounded a car carrying a handcuffed
Ghazarian that emerged from the court compound.
Riot police pushed back the crowd to allow the car to transport the businessman
to a detention center. One protester was detained in the scuffle, the Armenian
police said afterwards.
Armenia -- Davit Ghazarian, the official owner of the Spayka company, talks to
reporters moments after being arrested in a courtroom in Yerevan, April 8, 2019.
Although the busy street was unblocked about an hour later, the rally led by
another senior Spayka executive, Karen Baghdasarian, continued outside the
court building. In an emotional speech, Baghdasarian accused the SRC of
“destroying” what he described as one of Armenia’s most successful and rapidly
expanding businesses. He claimed that Ghazarian’s arrest will not only hurt
Spayka and its more than 1,200 workers but also thousands of farmers whose
agricultural produce is purchased by the company.
The protesters chanting “Spayka!” and “Freedom to Davit!” then marched to the
main government building in Yerevan to demand a meeting with Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian. The latter declined such a meeting, sending instead one of his
aides to talk to them.
The official, Nairi Sargsian, told the protesters that Pashinian will not
“intervene” in this or any other criminal case. Baghdasarian insisted, however,
that the prime minister must give the court a “personal guarantee” that would
pave the way for Ghazarian’s release.
At a news conference held on Friday, Ghazarian claimed that Pashinian had a
hand in the tax evasion charges brought against him.
Meanwhile, the businessman’s lawyers said that they have already asked the
court to free him on bail. One of the lawyers, Karen Sardarian, told reporters
that the tax fraud case against his client is based on a mere “expert
assessment” cited by the SRC. He said the tax agency should conduct a fresh and
more thorough inquiry with Spayka’s representatives. The company would accept
its findings, he said.
Armenia -- Employees of the Spayka company protest outside a court in Yerevan
against the arrest of its chief executive, Davit Ghazarian, April 8, 2019.
In an April 5 statement, the SRC said that the accusations stem from large
quantities of cheese and other foodstuffs which were imported to Armenia by
another company, Greenproduct, in 2015 and 2016. It claimed that Greenproduct
is controlled by Spayka and that the latter rigged its customs documents to pay
fewer taxes from those imports. Ghazarian said that Spayka is not connected to
Greenproduct and has only carried out cargo shipments for it.
Spayka was set up in 2001 and has since become Armenia’s largest producer and
exporter of agricultural products grown at its own greenhouses or purchased
from farmers in about 80 communities across the country. It also owns hundreds
of heavy trucks exporting those products to Russia and other countries.
In March 2018, the company borrowed $30 million from the Manila-based Asian
Development Bank to build more climate-controlled greenhouses equipped with
drip irrigation systems.
As recently as on March 26, Spayka inaugurated a newly built dairy factory in
Yerevan at a ceremony attended by Pashinian. It claimed to be planning to
expand further with a $100 million investment project which will be mostly
financed by the Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Development Bank.
Ownership of Spayka has long been a subject of Armenian media speculation. Some
media outlets have linked it to the family of former President Robert Kocharian
and then to his successor Serzh Sarkisian’s son-in-law, Mikael Minasian.
Ghazarian has maintained that he is the company’s sole real owner.
Armenian War Veterans Pick New Pro-Government Leader
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (L) and Sasun Mikaelian attend a
congress of the Yerkrapah Union in Yerevan, April 7, 2019.
The Yerkrapah Union, a once powerful organization uniting thousands of Armenian
veterans of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, has elected a close associate of Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian as its new leader.
Yerkrapah members unanimously voted for Sasun Mikaelian , a prominent war
veteran and the nominal chairman of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, at a
weekend congress in Yerevan.
Mikaelian, 61, pledged to resign from the party leadership in May. But he gave
no indications that he will also terminate his membership in Civil Contract.
Yerkrapah was established by the late Defense Minister Vazgen Sarkisian and
played a major role in Armenian politics in the 1990s and the early 2000s. It
began losing its political influence after Sarkisian was assassinated in the
October 1999 terrorist attack on the Armenian parliament.
But the group remained linked to the Armenian military in one way or another.
It sent thousands of armed volunteers to Nagorno-Karabakh following the
outbreak of large-scale hostilities there in April 2016.
Manvel Grigorian, an army general who succeeded Sarkisian as Yerkrapah chairman
in 1999, served as Armenia’s deputy defense minister from 2000-2008. He was
removed from the military after supporting former President Levon Ter-Petrosian
in the February 2008 presidential election.
In 2010, Grigorian openly pledged allegiance to then President Serzh Sarkisian.
He and Yerkrapah helped Sarkisian win reelection in a disputed vote held in
2013.
Grigorian resigned as Yerkrapah leader shortly after being arrested in June
2018 on corruption charges. His arrest came two months after Sarkisian was
overthrown in the “velvet revolution” led by Pashinian. Mikaelian actively
participated in the protest movement.
The new Yerkrapah leader insisted that he will not turn the veterans’ union
into the ruling party’s “appendage.” “You saw what happened when they tried to
make Yerkrapah serve the [former] authorities,” he said.
Mikaelian made clear at the same time that Yerkrapah “will never hamper” the
current Armenian government.
Pashinian attended and addressed the Yerkrapah congress.
Tsarukian’s Bodyguard Sentenced For Assault
• Naira Bulghadarian
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenian - Eduard Babayan (L) attends a parliament session in Yerevan, January
15, 2019.
A parliament deputy who was until recently Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK)
leader Gagik Tsarukian’s chief bodyguard has been convicted of violent assault
and sentenced to three and a half years in prison.
Nevertheless, Eduard Babayan will avoid imprisonment because of a general
amnesty declared by the Armenian authorities late last year.
Babayan, 47, was arrested in July last year after a 50-year-old man, Vyacheslav
Harutiunov, was hospitalized in Yerevan with severe injuries. The latter
claimed to have been beaten up at a compound of Armenia’s National Olympic
Committee headed by Tsarukian. He said he was hit by Tsarukian before being
repeatedly kicked and punched by Babayan and another person.
Both Tsarukian and Babayan strongly denied the allegation. The burly bodyguard
was charged even though his alleged victim later retracted his incriminating
testimony. He was freed on bail in August and elected to the Armenian
parliament on the BHK ticket in December.
Babayan continued to protest his innocence when he went on trial last month.
Harutiunov likewise maintained in court he had “slipped” and injured himself.
“There were no arguments between us, we are friends,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian
service after a March 21 court hearing.
In a police video released in July, Harutiunov said that he was attacked after
imploring Tsarukian to get Armenian law-enforcement authorities to withdraw an
international arrest warrant issued for his son accused of draft evasion. The
young man is a boxer and Russian national who was told to serve in Armenia’s
armed forces after receiving Armenian citizenship in order to compete for the
South Caucasus country in international tournaments.
Prosecutors cited this and other purported evidence of Babayan’s guilt during
the trial. The judge in the case sided with them, handing down a guilty verdict
late on Friday.
Babayan’s lawyer, Armen Melkonian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service on Saturday
that his client will appeal against the verdict.
Armenia - Businessman Gagik Tsarukian and his chief bodyguard Eduard Babayan
(R) at an election campaign rally in Hrazdan, 11 April 2012.
Tsarukian voiced support for Babayan when he spoke to journalists on Monday.
“Babayan is going to appeal … because no such [violent] thing happened,” he
said.
Babayan had said earlier that he will resign from the parliament is he is
convicted of assault. Tsarukian indicated that his former bodyguard will not do
that for now.
Armenian media have repeatedly implicated Tsarukian’s bodyguards -- and Babayan
in particular -- in violence, including against opponents of former
governments, in the past. The BHK leader, who is also one of the country’s
richest men, always denied those claims.
Armenia Sends Relief Aid To Flood-Hit Iran
• Nane Sahakian
IRAN -- Men clear away mud following floods in the Iranian city of Mamulan in
Lorestan province, April 7, 2019
Armenia sent on Monday an aid convoy to neighboring Iran to help victims of
devastating flash floods that have swept through hundreds of Iranian towns and
villages, killing at least 70 people.
The southwestern Khuzestan province has been especially hard hit by the floods
that began with heavy rains on March 19. Gholamreza Shariati, the provincial
governor, told the official IRNA news agency on Saturday that six local towns
"must be evacuated as soon as possible" as the government releases water from
major dams that are near overflowing.
A convoy of trucks carrying 4,000 blankets, 250 beds and 30 tents left Yerevan
after an official ceremony attended by Armenian Ministry of Emergency
Situations Felix Tsolakian and Seyyed Kazem Sajjad, the Iranian ambassador to
Armenia. Sajjad thanked the Armenian government for the aid.
Tsolakian said that the relief supplies were provided by the Armenian-Russian
Center for Humanitarian Response. They will be handed over to the Iranian Red
Crescent Society in the northern city of Tebriz, he told reporters.
Roobik Minasian, a Yerevan-based journalist with Radio Farda, RFE/RL’s
Persian-language service, said the Armenian humanitarian assistance is “very
symbolic” given the huge scale of the floods. “We can say that aid provided by
other countries is also symbolic,” he said.
Tsolakian offered to help the Iranian authorities cope with the consequences of
the natural disaster at a March 28 meeting with Sajjad. “We will be sending
technical equipment, machinery and rescuers,” he said at a cabinet meeting in
Yerevan held the following day.
The minister did not speak on Monday of a possible dispatch of Armenian rescue
teams to Iran.
Armenia has maintained a cordial relationship with Iran ever since its
independence. The leaders of the two nations pledged to deepen bilateral ties
during Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s recent official visit to the
Islamic Republic.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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