Recently the head of “Mig” TV company (Vanadzor city), S.Harutyunyan, told us that only complication they had with Arthur Baghdasaryan concerning broadcasting his interview was the fact that Arthur Baghdasaryan criticized “Lori” TV company in his interview, which they could not broadcast.
According to S.Harutyunyan, he suggested to cut that part out of the interview and broadcast the rest of it. The latter told us that the mentioned fact was the reason why they didn’t broadcast the interview, thus rejecting the payment of Arthur Baghdasaryan for that service. During our conversation S. Harutyunyan said, “Do you think that critical statements are said only in slang?”
Before speaking about the “Lori” TV company, the “Rule of Law” party (RL) newsletter criticized it and wrote that the mentioned TV company was doing whatever the authorities told them. The reason was the broadcast concerning the speech of Arthur Baghdasaryan in the theater of Vanadzor after H. Abelyan, where they said, “Recently, the RL and its members are making pathetic announcements about the fact that corruption has grown in Armenia, the authorities are tied to criminal groups and people are disappointed about those things, thus the society should fight against that, since the RL used to be a part of the authorities too. Please note that while the RL was at the parliament and Arthur Baghdasaryan was the speaker, they privatized many businesses and Arthur Baghdasaryan was tied with them. The journalists spoke about the RL new building on Abovyan street as well. The RL has many members that pay membership fees, some of which have even got grants and might have paid money to the budget of the party too. The people that are concerned and have done very correct calculations could find out that information too…” writes the RL newsletter concerning the TV company.
“The RL criticizes us and argues that we are setting limits on their freedom of speech, nevertheless, what we are doing is free speech too”, say the journalists of “Lori” TV company. Particularly, they say that Arthur Baghdasaryan criticizes corruption and financial violations, while “in his term (2003-2006) he did that too and was actively involved in such activities, even more, he didn’t miss a single opportunity to privatize businesses and get benefits from his position”. The journalists of the mentioned TV company brought up accurate facts concerning the new RL eight-story building on Abovyan street. Particularly, they said that the RL used expensive European construction materials to construct that building and the total price covers $3-4 million. Taking into account the fact that the RL is concerned about that information, we tried to find out information about that building too. We managed to find out very useful information. In fact, the information of the “Lori” TV company saying that the building was constructed in 2004-2006, i.e. during Arthur Baghdasaryan’s term is true. Arthur Baghdasaryan speaks the truth too when he says that while being a part of the authorities they criticized the authorities too. It’s just that on the one hand they criticized the government for privatizing lands, on the other hand they privatized lands too. It means that the RL criticized the government in the parliament for getting help from political parties and it privatized a piece of land in the center of Yerevan for the purpose of building its central office there (the land was given by governmental decision No 1888, as of 28.09.2004. The mentioned land is located in between two buildings of the agriculture university of Yerevan and covers 520 cm). In a short period the RL made a contract with “Epal” CJSC to quicken the construction project. Later, the RL made contract with “Urban” Ltd to construct a building, which didn’t reflect the real money inflow and expenses, as well as it didn’t pay taxes (of course, being backed by the RL). The building was the property of the RL until the resignation of Arthur Baghdasaryan from the speaker’s position. Following the resignation of Arthur Baghdasaryan (28.06.2006), the RL made contract and gave a part of the building to “Urban” Ltd as their property (Notarial contract No 5932, 1-4 floors, 7-8 floors, 2200,13 cm). Currently only the 5th and 6th floors are registered as the property of the RL. At the beginning we could not understand why they did that, however, later it turned out that the reality is the fact that the RL is trying to deceive not only the government, but as well as its members, who haven’t been informed about that contract so far. We tried to find out why the RL was so kind to the “Urban” company and why they gave a part of their building to them. The problem is the fact that the president of the “Urban” company (legal address: Bagratunyats str., 18-86), Seryoja Mkhitaryan is the father-in-law of Abraham Rubenyan (he is the head of Arthur Baghdasaryan’s body guard service and is the latter’s cousin). A. Rubenyan has always been close to Arthur Baghdasaryan and coordinated the financial and other relative procedures of the economic businesses that belonged to Arthur Baghdasaryan and his family, as well as he controlled the construction works of the mentioned building. The leader of the RL used the contacts of A. Rubenyan and with his help founded the “Urban” company, which “washed” the money of the RL in construction that they had received in cloudy conditions. Later, being afraid that some businessmen and RL former members would ask the money back that they had given to the RL to construct that building, the RL leader “insured” that building by registering a part of it in the name of the mentioned company, which in fact belongs to them too.
We asked for information from our sources of information from the government, the cadastre department of the government and form the Yerevan city administration office, who told us that the mentioned decision of the city administration (No 1888) as of 28.09.2004 was done by exceeding the power of the city administration office and in law violation since the RL application to privatize the land and the written agreement of the agriculture university were not enough yet to privatize the land. By No 471 decision of the RA government as of 2002 the mentioned university was declared as a governmental non-profit organization and it was given with furniture and surrounding lands. According to the 5th article of the RA law on non-profit organizations, such organizations don’t have a right to sell or give to another party its property and lands. That right is entitled only to the founder of such organizations, i.e. to the government. In fact, the agriculture university didn’t have a right to give a written permission, thus it had to be done only by the government. In the given case the RL and the mentioned university ignored the law by mutual agreement, and the city administration office didn’t “see” the mentioned law violation. On the basis of the abovementioned information, we may assume that the 1888 decision of the city administration office of Yerevan as of 28.09.2004 should be voided on the basis of Article 305, RA Civil Code. Accordingly, as well as the contract between the “Urban” company and the RL as of June 25, 2005, may be voided, which has not been registered in the cadastre department so far.
Besides that, we were told by a lawyer that as well as the contract between the RL and “Urban” on giving a part of the building under possession as of 28.06.2006 may be voided too. In addition, there is a point in the RA Civil Code, which writes that property cannot be given as donation on the basis of a contract, since donation is given not for the job done, but without anything expected instead (in this case that point may work too). In fact, in the given case the parties didn’t make a contract on buying property since they would have to pay taxes to the budget.
In spite of the fact that a part of the building is registered in the name of the “Urban”, the RL still uses that space, even more, the office of Arthur Baghdasaryan is situated on the seventh floor, which legally belongs to the “Urban” too. Besides that, on the ground floor that belongs to the mentioned company too the RL founded a jazz club. In fact, the leaders of the RL gave a part of their building as donation to the “Urban”, and it shows that the contract as of 28.06.2006 was made on the basis of the contract as of 29.06.2006 (one day later) which seems to be false (the donation contract does not write about which of them paid the cadastre payment: 9.906 million dram).
There was no need to do that since the RL leader thought that the “Urban” was founded by them and might be dissolved soon and the property might be legally donated back to the RL. In other words, the closer the elections are coming, the more violations that have been done long before are being discovered. This is the reason why the RL leader argued the “Mig” TV company to let him criticize the “Lori” TV company, which had broadcasted that information in Lori.