Who Was Actually Behind the Burglary of State Customs Committee Ex-President?

Of the ten men charged with the break-in on the house of Armen Avedisyan, one of the richest individuals in Armenia and former president of the State Customs Committee, all are behind bars awaiting trial, except for Souren Melkonyan.

Melkonyan was allowed to sign a no-flight waiver instead of pre-trial detention. It was due to Melkonyan that Armen Avedisyan got back the important documents and expensive jewels stolen from his house on October 27, 2008. Souren recounts that in January, 2009, he arranged by phone to meet Karen, one of Armen Avedisyan’s most trusted accomplices, near the Galaxy supermarket. It was there that Souren handed over a bag filled with the stolen booty. “I told the investigator who it was that gave me the bag and who I handed it to. They told me, ‘don’t worry. Just write what we tell you.’” Instead of Karen showing up at the “exchange”, a man named Haroutyun Aleksanyan appears. Souren, looking at the photo, claims that he doesn’t know the man. The court hasn’t been able to question Haroutyun. On one occasion someone from the police said the whereabouts of Haroutyun are unknown, and on another, we were told he was hiding in Turkey.

“They told me at the National Security Service, ‘We’ll help you. You’ll leave Armenia.’ But, as you can see I am still here and an indicted man. It is Haroutyun that isn’t in Armenia,” declared Souren Melkonyan at the last trial session. He says the most important thing is that the hand-over of the bag was filmed at the insistence of Karen. Souren’s lawyer, Marineh Tovmasyan, assured Hetq that they would definitely present the taped film as evidence. Souren claims that he was given Karen’s telephone number and the bag by Ara Karapetyan. During the pre-trial examination, Karapetyan, along with Armen Nikoghosyan (a former Nor Nork Deputy Police Chief convicted of a March 1, 2008 related crime) were charged with organizing the plot. Nine months later, the charges were modified. Karapetyan was now being charged not with organizing the burglary of Avedisyan’s house but of forming the criminal gang with Armen Nikoghosyan in the first place - a gang of thieves responsible for other crimes as well. Ara Karapetyan is the owner of Shoe City, one of Armenia’s largest importers of footwear. During questioning in court, Karapetyan testified that a Georgian man named Arold had become a customer at the shoe store. According to Karapetyan, one day in December, 2008, the Georgian asked if he could leave a bag at the store for a few days. Arold never came for the bag and Karapetyan found out later that he had been arrested in the Baltics. Checking out the bag’s contents, Karapetyan realized that he was looking at the loot stolen from Armen Avedisyan’s house and decided to return the bag’s contents to its rightful owner. All of those charges in this case have directly or indirectly stated in court that he real “mastermind” of the break-in was Arold, the Georgian. Arshak Grigoryan, one of those charged, even went so far to say that Aleko, Arold’s brother, had called him, telling him to hand himself over to the National Security Service and to place all the blame on Ara Karapetyan. “Aleko told me that it was Ara that sold us out and that it was Ara who returned the bag, tipping off the cops,” recounts Arshak. Souren Melkonyan also testified against Ara Karapetyan and Armen Nikoghosyan. Surprisingly, Melkonyan is a relative of Karapetyan and used to work at the shoe store as a retail sales manager. “Souren, do you sleep OK?” asked Karapetyan at the last cross examination. “I swear in God’s name that I haven’t slept peacefully for the past 1.5 years,” Souren answered. “Is it because you feel shame?” retorted Karapetyan. At first, Souren Melkonyan was brought into the case as a witness only, even though during his initial testimony he made some quite self-incriminating statements. In fact, Souren stated that he’d participated, in various degrees, in the crimes organized by Ara. Nevertheless, he was never formally charged until a full seven months later. “They told me at the National Security Service that I didn’t need a lawyer; that they would defend me. Later, when they went back on their promise, and turned me from a witness into an indicted man, they gave me a lawyer who was one of their former investigators. The lawyer told me that I shouldn’t worry; that the NSS had promised not to arrest me,” says Souren, adding that they forced him to testify. Souren says he wasn’t abused physically but that it would have been better if they beat him rather than threatening to place his 15 year-old son in a youth penal colony. Souren claims this mental torture lasted quite a while. On February 5, 2010, the General Prosecutor’s Office issued a statement that the burglary case had been sent to the courts. Newspapers the next day, referring to the statement, reported that ten people had been arrested, including Souren Melkonyan. Souren recounts, “On February 10, someone from the NSS called me (I’d rather not say who) and said ‘Hey, like we said before, we can do anything we want. Look, we haven’t arrested you but we told the papers to write that we would.” He handed the court a pile of A4 sized papers containing telephone numbers and the time and duration of calls placed. Souren says that while at the NSS they gave him a special cell phone card that only NSS employees could call. “Look at how many calls were placed to that number. There were calls that lasted more than 600 seconds. Just imagine what was taking place,” says Souren Melkonyan Souren Melkonyan says that while in the NSS office, they told him what to write, repeating the same point over and over. “They would say ‘we can get anyone to testify against you.’ They would threaten me, saying they could either grant me witness status or turn my family into paupers, living like bums on the street.” At the next scheduled trial date, September 6, Prosecuting Attorney Hovsep Sargsyan will surely ask questions related to the contradictions in Souren Melkonyan’s pre-trial and trail testimony.

Photos by Gagik Shamshyan