Infocom.am revealed last month that Sasun Khachatrian, who runs the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC), halted a criminal investigation into a wealthy businessman in 2021 shortly after purchasing the apartment in a new residential district constructed by the latter’s company in Yerevan.
Khachatiran paid 71 million drams ($180,000) for the 167 square-meter property. According to the online publication, 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 March 30 that Khachatrian was entitled to the discount because he had booked the apartment in advance of its construction. Infocom.am pointed out, however, that neither the ACC nor Jermuk Group provided any documentary evidence of the apartment reservation.
The publication 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 not prosecuting Arsenian.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday that it has looked into the article and found no wrongdoing on the part of Khachatrian which would warrant a formal criminal investigation. It did not go into details.
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.
Khachatrian is one of several Armenian officials, including Defense Minister Suren Papikian, who have bought expensive property in the upmarket Byuregh district built by Jermuk Group.
The investigative publication Hetq.am reported recently that even though Papikian’s apartment is now worth an estimated at $412,000 he paid only $168,000 for it last summer.
Pashinian defended his defense minister and close political ally on March 14, questioning the market value of the apartment cited by Hetq.am. He 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.