Author: Ara Felekian

                                        Thursday, 

Armenian Tax Agency Denies Huge Bonuses To Senior Staff

        • Nane Sahakian

Armenia - Davit Ananian, head of the State Revenue Committee, speaks to 
reporters in Yerevan, 25 October 2018.

Armenia’s State Revenue Committee (SRC) on Thursday strongly denied a media 
report that said its most-high ranking officials received huge yearend bonuses 
vastly exceeding their monthly wages.

The Yerevan.Today publication claimed that the SRC head Davit Ananian and his 
first deputy Rafik Mashadian were paid 8.6 million drams ($17,700) and 9.6 
million drams ($20,000) respectively in bonuses late last month. Two other 
senior SRC officials got roughly 6.5 million drams each, according to 
Yerevan.Today.

In a statement, the SRC said that the sums are grossly exaggerated. “There are 
no such amounts of bonuses in the SRC,” it said.

Ananian rejected the report as a “lie” when he spoke to reporters. “Such large 
amounts are just not possible,” he said.

Ananian refused to reveal how much extra pay he and other SRC officials 
received ahead of New Year’s holiday, saying that such information would 
constitute a privacy violation. He said only that the largest bonus was worth 
1.5 million drams.

According to government data, the average monthly salary in Armenia stood at 
169,000 drams ($350) as of November 2018.

The Yerevan.Today report came amid continuing media uproar over much smaller 
but still significant bonuses which three Armenian provincial governors paid 
themselves and their senior staffers.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other senior government officials have 
essentially defended the payments, arguing that they have been made for many 
years and have also benefited ordinary public sector employees. Pashinian also 
complained on Wednesday that the government has trouble attracting skilled 
professionals working for private firms because public sector salaries are too 
low.



Armenian Authorities Reopen Panama Papers Probe

        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia - Parliament deputy Mihran Poghosian at a session of the National 
Assembly in Yerevan, 19 May 2017.

An Armenian law-enforcement agency has launched a new criminal investigation 
into a former senior official who resigned in 2016 after being accused of 
having secret offshore accounts exposed by the Panama Papers.

Citing the leaked documents, the Hetq.am investigative publication reported in 
April 2016 that Mihran Poghosian, the then head of an Armenian state body 
enforcing court rulings, controls three shadowy companies registered in Panama. 
It said Poghosian has the exclusive right to manage Swiss bank accounts of two 
of those firms.

After initial a denial of the report, Poghosian announced his resignation later 
in April 2016. But he stopped short of admitting any wrongdoing.

The Special Investigation Service (SIS) launched a criminal investigation in 
connection with the Hetq.am report shortly after the resignation. It closed the 
criminal case in January 2017, saying that it found no evidence of Poghosian’s 
involvement in “illegal entrepreneurial activity.”

Poghosian had close ties to then President Serzh Sarkisian and his Republican 
Party of Armenia (HHK). He was elected to the former Armenian parliament on the 
HHK ticket in April 2017.

A spokeswoman for the SIS, Marina Ohanjanian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service on 
Thursday that the SIS has reopened the probe. She said investigators will again 
try to determine whether the once powerful official used his position to earn 
and hide business revenues.

Armenian media outlets had for years accused Poghosian of having extensive 
business interests. In particular, the 43-year-old was widely regarded as the 
main owner of Katrin Group, a company that enjoyed a de facto monopoly on 
banana imports to Armenia until last year’s “velvet revolution” that toppled 
Sarkisian. He always denied owning any lucrative businesses.

Shortly after the revolution the State Revenue Committee (SRC) launched a tax 
evasion inquiry into Katrin Group and three other firms linked to it. They 
promptly admitted failing to pay a total of 600 million drams ($1.2 million) in 
taxes, leading the SRC to stop the criminal proceedings.

The SRC reopened the probe a few weeks later, however, saying that it has 
discovered evidence of greater tax evasion on the part of the four business 
entities.



Bolton Voices U.S. Support For Pashinian


Armenia - U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks at a news 
conference in Yerevan, 25 October 2018.

The United States regards the recent parliamentary elections in Armenia as 
democratic and supports Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s reform agenda, U.S. 
National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Thursday.

“I called Prime Minister Pashinian of Armenia yesterday to congratulate him on 
his re-appointment and applaud the Armenian people on free and fair elections 
in December,” tweeted Bolton. “The U.S. supports his efforts to secure a 
prosperous future for Armenia.”

Pashinian was quick to report the phone conversation with Bolton on his 
Facebook page. Writing from Davos, he said they “stressed the importance of 
U.S.-Armenian relations for our governments.”

Visiting Armenia in October, Bolton praised the new Armenian government’s 
stated efforts to democratize the country, combat corruption and strengthen 
broader rule of law. He also said Washington expects Pashinian to take 
“decisive steps” towards the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s resolution “right 
after” his widely anticipated victory in the December 9 parliamentary elections.

Bolton spoke with Pashinian by phone one day after the latter met with 
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum 
held in the Swiss resort town. The Armenian leader said Wednesday that he did 
not discuss the Karabakh issue with U.S. President Donald Trump’s key adviser.

Trump sent a congratulatory letter to Pashinian late last week. “The United 
States supports a prosperous, democratic Armenia at peace with its neighbors,” 
he wrote. “Together, we can make progress on deepening trade between our 
countries, strengthening global security, and combating corruption. A peaceful 
solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will help these efforts.”

During his visit to Yerevan, Bolton also stated that normalizing relations with 
Azerbaijan and Turkey would enable Armenia to break “historical patterns” that 
have shaped its traditional foreign policy. He further indicated that 
Washington is ready to sell Yerevan U.S. weapons and thus reduce Russia’s 
“excessive influence” on Armenia.

Russia condemned those remarks, accusing the U.S. of meddling in its South 
Caucasus ally’s internal affairs. “We expect that the current leadership of 
Armenia … will have the courage to resist the unhidden external blackmail and 
pressure,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said last month.

Armenian leaders earlier played down the significance of Bolton’s statements.



European Court Reports Further Drop In Appeals From Armenia


FRANCE -- The building of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, 
November 15, 2018

The number of appeals filed by Armenians in the European Court of Human Rights 
(ECHR) continued to fall rapidly last year, the Strasbourg-based tribunal said 
on Thursday.

“For Armenia, the number of new applications allocated to a judicial formation 
was 167, more than a two-fold decrease as compared to 356 in 2017,” the ECHR 
said in an annual report presented by its president, Guido Raimondi, at a news 
conference.

The ECHR recorded 753 lawsuits from Armenia in 2016.

Armenia fell under the European court’s jurisdiction when it joined the Council 
of Europe in 2001. Its government lost the first case in Strasbourg in 2007.

The ECHR has ruled against various Armenian government, judicial and 
law-enforcement bodies on 94 occasions since then, costing them more than $1.2 
million in damages. “The highest number of violations related to the right to a 
fair trial, and right to liberty and security,” says its report.

The ECHR handed down 15 rulings against the Armenian state in 2018, up from 11 
such judgments in 2017.

“By January 1, 2019, there were 1,901 cases pending for Armenia, a small 
increase as compared to 1,819 in 2017. Armenia has remained in the top-ten 
states by the number of pending applications,” says the report.

The large number of lawsuits reflects a lack of judicial independence and 
corruption among law-enforcement officers and judges in Armenia.

The current Armenian authorities have repeatedly pledged to address the problem 
since they came to power in a democratic revolution in May. Their critics 
claim, however, that just like their predecessors, they pressure courts to side 
with prosecutors in high-profile criminal cases. Government officials -- and 
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in particular -- strongly deny this.



Press Review



“Hraparak” says that in “normal countries” bonuses paid to government officials 
and other public sector employees would not be as controversial as they are in 
Armenia. “But in a country where there is a lot poverty, unemployment and daily 
fight for survival such an outcry is natural,” writes the paper. “And if we 
recall that the ruling political force paved its way to power with the help of 
these poor and unemployed people it will be even more understandable why people 
[in Armenia] are outraged by those bonuses.” It says that Armenia’s current 
rulers must be prepared for public scrutiny of their questionable decisions 
because they had spent many years accusing their predecessors of plundering the 
country.

“For any reasonable person it is obvious that there is no alternative to 
negotiations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” “Zhoghovurd” writes in a 
commentary on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s latest meeting with Azerbaijani 
President Ilham Aliyev. “More precisely, the alternative is war. Any meeting or 
contact with Aliyev can only be beneficial for the negotiation process no 
matter how informal those meetings are.” The paper argues that ceasefire 
violations in the conflict zone have decreased significantly since Pashinian’s 
first meeting with Aliyev held in September.

“The latest Pashinian-Aliyev meeting held in Davos lasted for one and a half 
hours,” writes “Aravot.” “Of course it is only right that the leaders of 
Armenia and Azerbaijan do not shun each other while attending the same 
international events. But the time is now ripe for people to have a general 
idea of what the two leaders and their foreign ministers talk about. At any 
rate, it is better to meet and talk, even fruitlessly, than to shoot. One can 
assume that the leaders and foreign ministers of the two countries talk about … 
some [settlement] variants.” In this regard, the paper wonders whether 
confidence-building agreements reached by Baku and Yerevan in 2016 are still in 
force and whether the parties are now discussing a phased or a “package” peace 
deal.

(Lilit Harutiunian)




Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2019 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org

                                        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
Copyright (c) 2019 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org