At the beginning of the year, Iravaban.net presented an investigation regarding the real estate at 14 Aivazovsky Street (cereal factory: 3.45 ha plot and 9300 square meters of auxiliary buildings) in one of the areas in Yerevan. It was presented that a number of suspicious transactions were concluded in connection with it. At different times, persons or companies, which in one way or another are related to Mihran Poghosyan, a former deputy of the National Assembly, who held the position of Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer of Judicial Acts of the Republic of Armenia, acted as property buyers. Those transactions were concluded during the years of Mihran Poghosyan’s tenure at the Compulsory Enforcement Service.
The property located at 14 Aivazovsky Street belonged to Armen Stamboltsyan since 1999. In an interview with Iravaban.net, the lawyer representing his interests, Lusine Zeynalyan, states that the property was mortgaged in favor of “New House” LLC in “BTA Bank” operating in Armenia at that time. “Now the bank is not functioning, and the successor is “Armeconombank”. I should also mention that “Armeconombank” did not receive the succession of claims from “BTA Bank”, that is, it did not become a claimant”, the lawyer detailed.
According to Lusine Zeynalyan, “New House” LLC has not fulfilled its obligations towards the bank.
Then, on 02.09.2014, the Yerevan community, represented by the Head of the Erebuni Administrative District, submitted an application to the court with the demand to declare Armen Stamboltsyan bankrupt. Armen Stamboltsyan was declared bankrupt by the court decision of 24.11.2014.
“As part of the bankruptcy proceedings, according to the decision of the court, the property was put up for sale by auction in order to satisfy the demands of the depositors, while the Compulsory Enforcement Office of Judicial Acts, bypassing all legal regulations, started conducting parallel auctions outside the bankruptcy proceedings. This was inadmissible by law, because as a result of the bankruptcy process of “Nor Tun” LLC, the LLC was already liquidated in 2014. The notary approving the transactions also took an active part in this process, who, despite the presence of an entry regarding bankruptcy in the unified reference provided by the Cadastre Committee, which carries out state registration of real estate, continued to commit illegal actions. Ara Hakobyan, who had a relationship with Mihran Poghosyan, bought the property for 5.5 million AMD at the auction held in 2017. This is in the case when the mentioned property cost 1 billion AMD according to the preliminary assessment”, the lawyer said.
As we have already reported, Ara Hakobyan has been the director of “Kecharis Hotel” LLC since 07.05.2018. The 100 percent shareholder of “Kecharis Hotel” LLC is Eduard Harutyunyan, who is also the director of “Best Realty” LLC. These two companies (“Best Realty” LLC and “Kecharis Hotel” LLC) are related to Mihran Poghosyan. Still in 2019, according to the data reported by the Special Investigative Service, in 2011, Mihran Poghosyan founded Hopkinten Trading Incorporated and Sigtem Real Estate Incorporated in the Republic of Panama through foreign citizens, and in October of the same year, instead of foreign directors of companies with Poghosyan’s direct participation, close people of Mihran Poghosyan were appointed. Further, Mihran Poghosyan, , participated in the management of the aforementioned organizations registered in the offshore zone of Panama through proxies, as a result of which the latter founded other companies in Armenia, including “Best Realty” LLC.
According to the lawyer, after the 2018 revolution, Armen Stamboltsyan thought that maybe something had changed and on 6 February, 2020, he submitted a report to the National Security Service, on the basis of which a criminal case was initiated, which is now under the supervision of the prosecutor’s office.
“The NSS, according to the territorial jurisdiction, sent the case to the prosecutor’s office of Ajapnyak and Davtashen administrative districts. Then the case reached the Mashtots police department. Here the process was delayed. In December, 2020 a letter was received from the prosecutor’s office stating that the decision made in June not to initiate a criminal case should be canceled. In other words, it turned out that the proceedings were terminated in June, but we did not receive the decision regarding the termination of the proceedings. The case remained in the Mashtots department,” Lusine Zeynalyan said.
According to her, after about a year, as a result of various applications and complaints, the case was sent to the prosecutor’s office again. “The Prosecutor General’s Office also decided that the case should be in the Division of Investigation of Grave Crimes of the Investigative Department of Yerevan,” the lawyer said.
Regarding the report presented by Armen Stamboltsyan and its fate, in response to the written request of Iravaban.net, the Prosecutor General’s Office responded that “the criminal case (proceeding) initiated on the basis of Armen Stamboltsyan’s report is in the preliminary investigation stage, during the preliminary investigation, a number of persons were questioned, Until now, no decisions have been made to initiate a public criminal prosecution against any person, to recognize him as a victim.”
“We presented a number of facts to the investigator, which would have enabled him to examine the case, but it was not done. Article 196 of the Criminal Code, which is no longer in force, was brought into action: maliciously violating the procedure for conducting public auctions. This has nothing to do with all of this. We do not have requalification even at present. We don’t have any specific actions taken against the enforcement body. No status has been given to anyone. The case is stagnated for more than a year.
I hope that the case will be examined by the Anti-Corruption Committee, so that charges will be brought against the officials. And this is the case when the investigator investigates an economic crime, we give him a number of facts, explain that these are this of that people, substantiate everything with documents, so that you can see that this transaction was followed by this one, then this one, then that one, and therefore all of them are interconnected, they should be interrogated, it is not being done,” Lusine Zeynalyan noted.
Let us add that at the regular meeting of the Anti-Corruption Policy Council held on 11 February chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister emphasized the importance of conducting a proper investigation by the relevant departments into the media publications of corruption nature by the agencies, including the Prosecutor General ‘s Office.
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In addition to this case, it is also worth reminding that Ara Hakobyan filed several lawsuits in the RA courts in connection with the Aivazovsky 14 area, which are in progress.
Claim one (administrative court). On 14.12.2021, Ara Hakobyan filed a lawsuit against the Cadastre Committee. Ara Hakobyan demands to invalidate the property right of “Arndane” Company registered on 10.12.2021 and oblige the Cadastre Committee to register the property right of Ara Hakobyan. The judge in the case is Elena Arakelyan.
Claim two (civil court): On 29.12.2021, Ara Hakobyan filed a lawsuit against Armen Stamboltsyan’s bankruptcy administrator Hovhannes Soghomonyan and “Arndane” Company, demanding that the auction of the property at 14 Aivazovsky address on 28.12.2018 be declared invalid, and based on that, declare invalid ownership right of “Arndane” Company over the property. The judge in the case is Sergey Sahakyan.
Claim three (civil court): On 20.12.2021, Ara Hakobyan filed a lawsuit against debtor Armen Stamboltsyan’s bankruptcy administrator Hovhannes Soghomonyan and “Arndane” Company, demanding that the auction of the property at 14 Aivazovsky address on 28.12.2018 be declared invalid, and based on that, the ownership right of “Arndane” Company should also be declared invalid. Yerem Esoyan is the judge in the case.
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It should also be reminded that on December 23, 2022, the General Prosecutor’s Office announced that on 21 December, 2022, the supervising prosecutor decided to initiate a public criminal prosecution against Mihran Poghosyan’s security guard E.S. and driver H.B.
During the criminal proceedings investigated by the Anti-Corruption Committee, factual data were obtained that H.B. and E.S. assisted the former Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer M.P., in using the official position to embezzle especially large amounts of another person’s property in a wasteful manner.
As a result, the Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer M.P., using his official position, embezzled a total of 22 million 117 thousand 820 drams from the funds of the state budget in the case of E.S., and 21 million 754 thousand 643 drams in the case of H.B. respectively.
On 22 December, 2022, the decisions to initiate a public criminal prosecution were sent to the RA Anti-Corruption Committee for the purpose of filing charges.
On 20 May, 2022, a decision was made to indict the former Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer M.P. as an accused for the fact that he, occupying the position of RA Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer, embezzled particularly large amounts of property in five separate cases; misused, as well as exceeded his official powers, which negligently caused grave consequences, and legalized particularly large amounts of property obtained through criminal means.
On 20 April, 2019, Mihran Poghosyan was found by Russian law enforcement officers in the Republic of Karelia and arrested. As a result of the cooperation of RA and RF Prosecutor’s Offices, on 23 April, the RF Court granted the request of the RF Prosecutor’s Office to detain Mihran Poghosyan for 40 days in order to discuss the issue of handing him over to RA.
On 17 August, 2019, the Prosecutor General’s Office issued a statement that according to the information received from the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, it was not considered possible to satisfy the petition of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office to hand over Mihran Poghosyan for criminal prosecution, based on the provisions of Article 19 of the 22.01.1993 ” Convention on Legal Aid and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Cases”.
Note: A person that is suspected or accused of an alleged crime is considered innocent until his/her guilt is proved by a court judgment that has come into legal effect pursuant to the procedure determined by RA Criminal Procedure Code.
