Infocom.am revealed on Wednesday that Sasun Khachatrian, who runs the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC), paid 71 million drams ($180,000) for the 167 square-meter apartment in a new residential district constructed in Yerevan. It said this is significantly less than what the owners of other apartments located in the same building paid Jermuk Group, a private developer.
The ACC claimed on Thursday that Khachatrian was entitled to the discount because he had booked the property in advance of its construction. He did so earlier than other buyers, it told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Infocom.am pointed out, however, that neither the ACC nor Jermuk Group provided any documentary evidence of the property reservation.
The publication also noted that the ACC investigated Ashot Arsenian, a well-known businessman who controls Jermuk Group, over vote buying alleged by the Armenian police in 2018. Citing a lack of incriminating evidence, the law-enforcement body suspended the investigation in October 2021, seven months after Khachatrian formalized his property deal with Arsenian’s firm.
The author of the investigative article, Mkrtich Karapetian, suggested that Khachatrian may have bought the apartment at a knockdown price in exchange for freezing the probe. Law-enforcement authorities must therefore investigate possible “corruption risks” involved, he said.
Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General, which oversees criminal cases opened by the ACC, would not say whether it will launch such an inquiry.
For its part, the Commission on the Prevention of Corruption, a state body scrutinizing asset declarations filed by senior Armenian officials, said it is looking into the Infocom.am article. A senior commission official, Karen Hakobian, said it will also seek explanations from Khachatrian.
Khachatrian, 46, worked as a senior prosecutor under Armenia’s former governments. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian appointed him as chief of the Special Investigative Agency, of which the ACC is the successor agency, after coming to power in 2018. Khachatrian also owns two other apartments in Yerevan, according to Infocom.am.
The SIS and the ACC have conducted dozens of high-profile corruption investigations mainly targeting former senior state officials, including ex-Presidents Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian. Government critics have accused Khachatrian of executing Pashinian’s orders, rather than upholding the rule of law.
Incidentally, Arsenian was, at least until recently, a figure very close to Sarkisian. The tycoon’s son Vahagn was investigated for draft evasion before being elected mayor of the town of Jermuk on the ruling Civil Contract party’s ticket in December 2021.
Khachatrian is not the only Armenian official to have bought expensive property in the upmarket Byuregh district built by Jermuk Group.
The investigative publication Hetq.am reported recently that Defense Minister Suren Papikian acquired last summer an apartment there which is now worth an estimated at $412,000. It said that Papikian paid only $168,000.
Pashinian defended his defense minister and close political ally on March 14, questioning the market value of the apartment cited by Hetq.am. He said that just like tens of thousands of other Armenians, Papikian obtained a mortgage to buy real state and will repay it with his legal incomes.
Speaking at a news conference, the prime minister again claimed to have eliminated “systemic corruption” in Armenia.
Pro-opposition and independent media outlets increasingly accuse members of Pashinian’s entourage of enriching themselves or their cronies. Earlier this month, hackers hijacked the YouTube channel of the Yerevan daily Aravot as it was about to publish a video report detailing expensive property acquisitions by several senior government officials and pro-government lawmakers.
