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Ararat Davtyan

Mutual Recriminations: Ministry Officials “Pass the Buck” on Bribery

“The money was just to cover my business expenses”, says one Two top former officials in the RoA Ministry of Nature Protection (MNP), Tigran Grigoryan, who headed the Ministry’s Environmental Inspectorate, and Arsen Petrosyan, his deputy, have been indicted on bribery charges. “That guy approached me saying that our people acted improperly. That we showed up to conduct an inspection and complained that no one offered them coffee or even offered to pay transportation expenses. He said that he had come to make amends and say thank-you. I said there is no need, but that I leave it up to you. I thought, what’s the fuss, all they have to give is about $1,000,” stated Arsen Petrosyan in court. The ‘guy’ referred to by Petrosyan is Hrant Avagyan, assistant to the owner of the Akhtala Mining Enrichment Company. Monitoring by the Inspectorate revealed that due to company violations the state had incurred damages to the tune of 202 million AMD. Akhtala management discussed the matter with Nature Protection Minister Aram Harutyunyan. Amazingly, after these discussions, the amount to be paid by the company to the state decreased by twenty fold. Who reduced the fines by twenty fold? Arguments and evidence from both sides are now being presented in the trial. It has yet to be shown who exactly reduced the original 202 million in fines down to 10,141,600. Contrary to plaintiff Harutyun Harutyunyan, the defense argues that the defendants could not have made such a change given their position within the ministry. Their arguments are backed up by Simon Papyan, First Deputy Minister at the MNP, who was called to testify. “The Akhtala Mining Enrichment Company had also been obligated to construct a water system by the end of October of last year that would allow the Debed River to be spared the poisonous effluents of the plant. However, plant owner Serob Ter-Petrosyan, an advisor to the Armenian Prime Minister, requested that the construction deadline be extended till January of 2011. The MNP was supposed to have replied to the request in writing. According to the indictment, the two MNP officials, Grigoryan and Petrosyan, demanded 5 million AMD from company officials to see to it that the reply was in the affirmative. The money was paid. Not a ‘bribe’ but compensation However, Arsen Petrosyan argues that this wasn’t a ‘bribe’ but rather compensation for business expenses and the fact that he never took a work break during the inspection. “Two days later Hrant Avagyan came and said, ‘Remember what we talked about? I’ve brought my little thank-you. Do you want to count it?’ I said no, there was no need,” recounts Arsen Petrosyan, noting that he had been busy on the computer and didn’t notice the thickness of the envelope. When he found out that the envelope contained 5 million AMD, Petrosyan claims that he wanted to track down Avagyan. As luck would have it, as he was leaving, his boss, Tigran Grigoryan entered the office. “It was the end of the work day. Mr. Grigoryan said, ‘I asked you to do something, what’s the story?’ At that moment I counted out the equivalent of $10,000 from the envelope and handed it to him. I got worried; what if the guy comes back, what will I do? That’s why I told Mr. Grigoryan to take the money and that I would explain things later. I was supposed to go back and explain where the cash had come from,” argues Petrosyan. He adds that about a week earlier his boss Grigoryan had asked him for a loan for a car he wanted to buy. “He said he needed about 10 million and wanted to know if I could help him out. We were accustomed to helping each other out with loans,” Petrosyan adds. It seems that Arsen Petrosyan was thrust into the role of sacrificial lamb and that his boss Grigoryan is also inclined to leave him to the chopping block. Grigoryan testified in court that he had absolutely no knowledge as to the source of the money given him by his deputy and that he only got wind that it was a bribe after he had been arrested. Chief labels his deputy as an “independent operator” During the pre-trial examination, Grigoryan confessed that relations with his deputy, Petrosyan, had been tense. It seems that Petrosyan would take advantage of the fact that he was a well-qualified specialist and would periodically introduce himself as the department chief and conduct independent business on his own, for which he had been reprimanded. “Knowing Arsen Petrosyan, I can’t rule out the possibility that he spotted the prospect for personal gain in the letter to Akhtala Mining,” Grigoryan testified, denying any complicity himself. Grigoryan says that at the time he was on vacation and hardly made it to the office. On December 28, the day of his arrest, Grigoryan says that he had gone to the office to supervise arrangements for the New Year’s Party. As to the fact that the letter in reply to Akhtala carried his name and not that of Arsen Petrosyan, Mr. Grigoryan comments that this is just further proof of Petrosyan’s malevolence. The Inspectorate Chief says that he was in the process of buying a $43,000 Mercedes and that we was asking friends to loan him some money. He says that he asked his deputy for $10,000 but only because he figured that Petrosyan would never give it. I thought the money he gave me was a car loan “I simply wanted to show him (Petrosyan) that he ‘talked the talk but couldn’t walk the walk.’” said Grigoryan to the police examiner. Out of the blue, Petrosyan stated that he had gotten hold of the money. In court, Grigoryan said that Petrosyan handed him the cash, while during the pre-trail examination he had said that the money was in an envelope with the amount, 3,790,000, written on the outside. “I probably got a bit confused during the pre-trial,” said Grigoryan in court. In fact, when the cops seized the money, the cash was wrapped in paper with the amount written on the outside. But Grigoryan could never recall who packaged the cash or wrote the amount down. When they arrested Tigran Grigoryan, police found three more wads of cash, in addition to the money given by Petrosyan, in the same plastic folder. There was 3.8 million AMD in one and the other two contained $15,000 and $18,000 respectively. The Inspectorate Chief claims that this money was given to him as loans by friends on that very day. Tigran Grigoryan prior to working at the MNP, was employed at the Police Department’s Personnel Division. He transferred over to the MNP in 2007, first as Director of Sevan National Park and later as Environmental Inspectorate Chief. I found guilty, Grigoryan and Petrosyan face up to 12 years behind bars. The trial is scheduled to continue on April 10.

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