By the 16 September decision of the Government, the former head of the Special Investigation Service Sasun Khachatryan was appointed to the post of the Chairman of the newly established Anti-Corruption Committee.

According to the “Law on the Anti-Corruption Committee”, this structure is an investigative body that organizes and implements pre-trial criminal proceedings on alleged corruption crimes within its jurisdiction under the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia.

Within its powers, the Anti-Corruption Committee carries out operative-investigative activities, in the manner provided by the “Law on Operative-Investigative Activities” as well as other powers defined by the mentioned law.

Activities of Anti-corruption committee are based on the principles of independence, publicity, financial independence and political neutrality.

Part 1․ The Competition Board formed for the election of candidates for the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee

A Competition Board is formed for the election of the candidates for the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, the formation and functions of which are defined by Article 18 of the “Law on the Anti-Corruption Committee”.

The Board is formed of 7 members nominated by:

• the Government,
• the Council of the National Assembly,
• the Supreme Judicial Council,
• the Prosecutor General,
• the Human Rights Defender (each of them nominates one candidate), and
• two representatives of civil society.

Notably, from the beginning it did not function in its entirety.

It should also be reminded that the Governing Board of the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia issued a condemning statement on 9 June.

“On 4 June, 2021, the Office of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia announced a competition to involve two representatives of civil society in the Competition Board (hereinafter referred to as the Board) for the Election of Candidates for the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Committee). The announcement of the competition was published on the Government website on Friday, 4 June, 2021. The period for applications is only 5 days, from June 7 to 11 inclusive (Monday to Friday following the announcement).

According to the RA Law on the Anti-Corruption Committee, a Competition Board is formed for the election of the candidates for the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee. The Board is composed of one candidate nominated by the Government, the Council of the National Assembly, the Supreme Judicial Council, the Prosecutor General, the Human Rights Defender (one candidate each), and two representatives of civil society.

The CSOs Anti-Corruption Coalition Armenia, taking into account the vicious practice of election of the Competition Board members for the election of the members to the Corruption Prevention Commission, has issued a condemning statement on 4 June, announces that it will not participate in the competition for the election of two members from the Civil Council to be included in the composition of the Competition Board.”

Moreover, the Coalition questions this unjustified haste in the conditions under which the competition is organized during the pre-election campaign for the early parliamentary elections in Armenia under the veil of suddenness, false democracy and transparency.

Moreover, the Coalition questions this unjustified haste in the conditions under which the competition is organized during the pre-election campaign for the early parliamentary elections in Armenia under the veil of suddenness, false democracy and transparency.

The Coalition called on the Government to refrain from holding the above-mentioned formal competition and making political appointments under its veil until the end of the extraordinary parliamentary elections and the formation of the new composition of the National Assembly. Earlier, the Coalition expressed a negative opinion on the appointment of the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, other officials and other important provisions, as it would be a political party-group interest-led, government-sponsored, one-person political appointment by the Prime Minister.

“From the outset, such formulation does not meet such important criteria set out in the Jakarta Statement on the Principles for Anti-Corruption Agencies as: impartiality, neutrality, integrity and competence, independence and political neutrality. Therefore, the formation of anti-corruption bodies through corrupt behavior and conflicts of interest is doomed to failure from the beginning. And we, as pioneers in the fight against corruption, cannot be participants in it,” the statement read.

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Mariam Galstyan

1․ By the decision of 14 June, the Government appointed Mariam Galstyan, the Head of the Anti-Corruption Policy Development and Monitoring Department of the RA Ministry of Justice, as a candidate for the member of the Competition Board formed for the election of candidates for the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee. At the first session, on 20 July, she was elected Secretary of the Board.

At the same time, it should be noted that in parallel with the election of the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, by the decision of the Competition Board formed for the selection of a candidate for the vacant position of a member of the Anti-Corruption Committee, her candidacy was nominated for a vacant position.

On 14 September, Mariam Galstyan was elected a member of the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption with 66 votes in favor and 1 against.

It turns out that on 10 September, when the competition for the election of the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee was held, she was already a candidate for a member of the CPC.

Heriknaz Tigranyan

2․ We have already written about Heriknaz Tigranyan, the candidate nominated by the Council of the National Assembly in the Competition Board formed for the election of the Chairman of the Committee. It should be reminded that on 29 June, at the special sitting of the Council of National Assembly, Heriknaz Tigranyan was appointed a member of the Competition Board formed for the election of candidates for the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee by 11 votes in favor, 0 abstentions and 0 votes against .

However, she could not hold the position of a member of the Board, as according to Article 18, Point 3 of the Law on the Anti-Corruption Committee, a person with party affiliation cannot be appointed a member of the Board, and Tigranyan is a member of the “Civil Contract” party. We have published a brief investigation on this fact.

Further, at the special Session of the NA of Council held on 6 July took place during which the decision to revoke NA Council’s decision AJKHO-041-A of 29 June, 2021, “On appointing a Member of the Competition Board formed for the election of Candidates for the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee”, by which Heriknaz Tigranyan was appointed a member of the Board..

3․ Hamlet Asatryan, the Chairman of the Criminal Chamber of the RA Court of Cassation represented the Supreme Judicial Council at the Competition Board, and he was elected Chairman of the Board at the first session on 20 July.

Hamlet Asatryan

4․ The candidate appointed by the Prosecutor General was Gevorg Baghdasaryan, Adviser to the Prosecutor General.

Gevorg Baghdasaryan

5․ In response to Iravaban.net‘s inquiry, the Human Rights Defender’s Office stated that the Human Rights Defender had not nominated a candidate. “Due to the absence of an employee who meets the mandatory conditions required by the “Law on the Anti-Corruption Committee”, the RA Human Rights Defender did not nominate a member of the Competition Board for the election of candidates for the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee,” the response reads.

6․ In response to our written inquiry, The government stated that two organizations, the “Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center” NGO and the “Union of Informed Citizens” Consulting NGO, had applied to involve representatives of civil society organizations. These structures respectively represented by:

– Daniel Ioannisyan, Program Director of the “Union of Informed Citizens” Consulting Non-Governmental Organization.

Daniel Ioannisyan

– Hayk Martirosyan, Legal Expert of “Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center” Non-Governmental Organization.

Hayk Martirosyan

Let us also remind the affiliation of these NGOs with the Government․

At the 22 August sitting, the Government decided to allocate 33 million 680 thousand drams from the reserve fund to two non-governmental organizations to observe the local self-government elections to be held in Artsakh on 8 September.

16 million 200 thousand drams to the Stepanakert office of the “Union of Informed Citizens”, and 17 million 480 thousand drams to the “Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center”.

Let us add that these two organizations have another thing in common․ Both have been funded for years by a single source, the Open Society Foundations -Armenia Foundation (popularly known as the George Soros Foundation).

We present to your attention the official publications on the 2020 and 2019 grants in the grants section of the Open Society Foundations – Armenia website.

Hayk Martirosyan, a representative of the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center NGO, announced during the 29 July meeting of the Competition Board that he was leaving the staff due to some disagreements.

In particular, TIAC proposed setting a higher passing threshold at the end of the candidates’ integrity check (70% of the maximum envisaged score, compared to 50% of the other criteria). This proposal was not accepted by the Competition Board, the fact was unacceptable for the organization, and TIAC, not considering it expedient to continue the membership of its representative in the Competition Board, withdrew from the staff.

The official statement of the organization is available here։

Details in the video.

It should also be mentioned that Vitaly Casco, an expert of the International Development Law Organization, also participated in the sittings remotely in an advisory manner. He was present at the stage of interviewing the candidates held in the government building, as well as asked questions to the candidates.

Conclusion:

Thus, it turns out that the Competition Board did not function in its entirety and the final decision was made by 4 members instead of 7, while the regulation of the law is not an end in itself and such decisions should be made not with minimum, but with maximum votes. And what is most important, specialized CSOs not affiliated with the government did not participate in the Competition Board, due to which the decision of the Board on the selection of candidates is illegitimate, and the Competition Board is a veil, from the very beginning with a purpose to appoint a predictable candidate for the government through a veil contest.

Part 2․ Candidates for the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee and the election stage.

There were 3 candidates for the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee:

• Head of the Special Investigation Service Sasun Khachatryan,
• Lawyer Garnik Torosyan,
• Former employee of the Central Bank Davit Mkrtumyan.

During the interviews, the members of the Competition Board asked questions to the candidates.

Sasun Khachatryan

Some of the questions addressed to Sasun Khachatryan were noteworthy, in particular, those related to property and income declarations.

In his question, one of the members of the Competition Council mentioned, “Your daughter received a donation of 4.3 million drams, Tigran Gevorgyan is also among the donors, to whom your wife donated 100% of the shares of “Clerical Office Number One” LLC in 2018.”

“My daughter got married last year, and on the occasion of her marriage, the newlyweds received a gift in the form of money from all the relatives and friends of both sides, and I do not think that 3.5 million drams is the large number they could receive as a wedding gift from friends. “, – Sasun Khachatryan said.

He also clarified that Tigran Gevorgyan is his wife’s brother. Tigran Gevorgyan’s name was mentioned several times during the questions and answers.

“In 2017, your wife’s bank account had cash in the amount of 2.8 million drams and $ 1600, and then there was the same amount of cash outflow, but that information is not in the annual declaration. How do you explain all this?” Daniel Ioannisyan asked.

Sasun Khachatryan answered:

“In May 2017, while I was out of Armenia, my daughter received an invitation from the University of Sheffield in Greece to attend university where her friends were also studying, and the embassy required that one of the parents’ accounts have some money as Guarantee that the child will be safe there. Since I was not in Armenia, my wife asked her brother Tigran Gevorgyan to transfer the mentioned amount to the account opened in her name in “Ameria” bank on the same day. Tigran Gevorgyan transferred the mentioned amount to my wife Lilit Khachatryan’s account, a certificate was provided, and the bank also provided that there was this amount on Lilit Khachatryan’s account as of that day and hour, after which only 45 minutes later the amount was withdrawn from the account again and returned to Tigran Gevorgyan. This certificate was submitted to the Greek Embassy. This is the whole story, simply the uncle has created that guarantee for his sister’s child that the child will have the opportunity to go to a Greek university. It’s neither a loan nor ․․․; I do not know how to do anything. If there is anything, let us declare, but the problem has been difficult for me.”

The Competition Board also asked to provide details about Tigran Gevorgyan’s activities, presenting details whether he has affiliation  with a state body, has he participated in any tender? And whether he won or not.

Sasun Khachatryan mentioned that Gevorgyan has an accounting office, which carries out accounting of different companies.

“As far as I know, he is a director in a number of companies: it is not correct for me to be interested in how much money he earns, how he earns it. He has no affiliation with state bodies. As far as I know, he never participated in government tenders, I would have heard if so. It is a completely private sphere, which has nothing to do with any state service.”

It also turned out that Sasun Khachatryan was driving his brother-in-law’s car.

“During the last three years I have used the car that belongs to my wife’s brother, which I rarely drive, by the way, he has several cars, and he is quite a wealthy fellow. I drive very little because I have a company car, from morning till late at night I am mainly at work. If there is a need to drive a car, I ask him, and he gives the car. I drive and try not to break the rules,” he said.

Sasun Khachatryan also detailed that the car is a Porsche, produced in 2011 or 2012, which he has been operating since 2019 or 2020. “Its market value, if I am not mistaken, is 10 million drams.” According to him, after purchasing the car, it was used by several people, including him, and it is not always at his disposal. “Often, when I am on vacation or I have to go to other places, it is at my disposal, because, as I mentioned, he has several cars, he does not have such a problem,” Sasun Khachatryan said.

He again mentioned that the cost of the car is about 10 million drams, about 20 thousand dollars․ “I can afford to buy such a car; I just do not need a car now, because I do not drive most of the time.”

Thus, as a result of the question and answer session with Sasun Khachatryan, reasonable doubts arise about the latter’s property and income (including those he actually owns/uses). According to the Law on the Anti-Corruption Committee, the stage of integrity check is also a stage of the competition for holding a position in the Anti-Corruption Committee, during which, one day after the end of the document review phase, the Competition Board submits to the Commission for Prevention Corruption a completed questionnaire on the integrity of the participants who passed the document review phase, in order to obtain an advisory opinion within twenty days.

 (The last sentence was changed as of 29-09-21, 10:05, previously mentioned “testing phase” instead of document review and “one month period” instead of twenty days).

In fact, the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption has not conducted a comprehensive, objective and thorough investigation to determine the affiliation of the candidate and the property actually used by him.

Moreover, the Law on the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption allows the Commission in order to dispel any doubts, to request a situational declaration of property and income from a person, related to the declarant (in the sense of the Law on Public Service) by kinship or in-lawship guardianship, from any person declared or party to the transaction to be declared, or from the person who may own the real estate, means of transport, actually owned or used by the declarant, if the above doubts can be dispelled by analyzing the data to be submitted in the situational declaration. It should be noted that Tigran Gevorgyan, the brother of Sasun Khachatryan’s wife, according to the Law on Public Service, is a person related as in-law.

It should be reminded that Sasun Khachatryan, before assuming the position of the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, held another high-ranking position, the position of the Head of the Special Investigation Service, and was a declaring official. Therefore, this information should have been clarified by the Corruption Prevention Commission in advance. In any case, not any open source, including a live broadcast of the competition for the election of the candidate for the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, has provided such information.

In addition to the above, it is written in Sasun Khachatryan’s biography that the latter speaks Armenian, Russian and English, but the latter listened to the English-speaking international expert with a headset. In other words, an English translation was provided for the candidate, which assumes that the candidate is not fluent in English and that the information mentioned in the biography may not correspond to reality. Of course, due to the imperative requirement of the law, it is possible that in order to prove his/her proficiency in foreign language, the candidate has passed a test in Russian or French, therefore, the question “whether the candidate speaks another foreign language at the same level as English” arises.

Aghvan Hovsepyan

It is interesting that Sasun Khachatryan worked in the Prosecutor’s Office in 2000-2016, 2017-18, holding various positions. Aghvan Hovsepyan also worked in the Prosecutor’s Office during the same period, moreover, in 1998-1999 he was the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia, in 1999-2004 he was the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia and in 2004-2013 he was again the Prosecutor General.

Two days before the interview of the candidates for the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, on 8 September, it became known that Aghvan Hovsepyan had been arrested. Earlier, the Special Investigation Service (in that period headed by Sasun Khachatryan) reported that Aghvan Hovsepyan, who held the post of the RA Prosecutor General from 18 March, 2004 to 13 September, 2013, and the post of the Chairman of the Investigative Committee from 18 July, 2014 to 11 June, 2018, in the mentioned period he actually participated in the management of a number of LLCs carrying out business activities, in addition he received a particularly large bribe of 190,000,000 AMD, and fraudulently committed theft of property in a particularly large amount of 800,000,000 AMD. Hovsepyan was also charged with money laundering in a particularly large amount, totaling 1,299,404,414 AMD.

Aghvan Hovsepyan was charged with committing the above-mentioned criminal acts under Article 310, Article 311, Part 4, Clause 2, Article 178, Part 3, Clause 1, Article 190, Part 3, Clause 1 (3 episodes) of the RA Criminal Code.

Garnik Torosyan

Garnik Torosyan, the candidate for the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, in response to the questions of the members of the Competition Board, mentioned that in his estimation there has been no fight against corruption in Armenia for the last 30 years. “I categorically said “there has been no fight”, but the manners, the actions that people have done for years and there was no response for that, in this context, in this light, I will say that it did not happen.”

It also became clear that he did not declare the incomes received by his wife and daughter in the last 3 years. The candidate mentioned that he may have missed, because he was asked various questions by the Commission for Prevention Corruption, but nothing was said about that. However, the Competition Board explained that they could not ask him a question about that, because if that information was not submitted, it is assumed that there was no income. Then he verbally provided information about their workplaces.

The Competition Board also clarified that in fact Garnik Torosyan’s income in the last 3 years was about 3.8 million drams, which was received from the pension for his service in police and about 445 thousand drams, which was received from the activity of a lawyer. However, he had declared 3 million drams, noting that it was received from customers. Garnik Torosyan added that all the issues had been clarified with the CPC.

In response to the question whether he often drives his wife’s car, he mentioned that it happens sometimes. Neither had he clearly stated whether he had ever been fined for violating traffic rules.

“Is there anyone in Armenia who knows the traffic rules for 100%?” he said, adding that the traffic decisions of the Traffic Police are received in his wife’s name, because the car belongs to her on the ownership right.

David Mkrtumyan

The questions addressed to Davit Mkrtumyan, mainly referred to his previous job, his work experience at the Central Bank. It became clear that he was relieved about 6 years later on the initiative of his employer.

“As this case is pending, I may not be able to provide many details,” David Mkrtumyan said. He also mentioned that the characteristics of about 7-8 years of work activity were assessed positively, and only the assessment of work in 2019 was assessed as unsatisfactory.

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Hamlet Asatryan, Chairman of the Competition Board, Chairman of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation stated, “There are three main requirements for assessment: personal data, Knowledge of professional integrity and training. Each requirement has criteria and is evaluated according to criteria. There is a maximum of 100 points that one candidate can receive from one board member. There is a passing threshold; it is 50% of the total number of points. The Board has set a stricter requirement for integrity. The passing threshold for integrity is 60%”

According to the results published by the Competition Board, the candidates’ scores are:

• Sasun Khachatryan – 308 points, of which 115 for integrity,
• David Mkrtumyan – 257 points, of which 121 for integrity,
• Garnik Torosyan – 202 points, of which 107 for integrity.

All three candidates had passed the threshold. It should be reminded that the Competition Board acted incompletely until the moment of election. The decision was made by four of the foreseen seven members.

According to the Law on the Anti-Corruption Committee, within two days after compiling the list of candidates, the Board submits the list of winners to the Government, at the same time publishing it on the official website of public announcements (www.azdarar.am) and on the official website of the Staff.

The Government discusses the issue of appointing the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee and makes a corresponding decision within ten days after the nomination of candidates by the Board. In any case, the Government selected Sasun Khachatryan from the three candidates.

Conclusion

As a result, the concerns that the Competition Board formed for the election of the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee was veiled were confirmed, and through which merely the fulfillment of the formal requirement of the law to have a Competition Board and to select a candidate through that Board was ensured, and the ultimate goal of which was the appointment of the candidate preferred by the government. Earlier, the Governing Board of the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia had announced this concern in a condemning statement issued on 9 June.