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Ararat Davtyan

"I’ll stand atop Masis and spit on your forehead"

In 2009, the well known businesswoman Silva Hambardzoumyan purchased the Sipan-1 company.

This company had been the owner of the Litchkvaz-Tey and Terterasar gold mines. However, RA Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Armen Movsisyan, subsequently stripped the company of its operating license for these mines.

The company took the matter to the courts and the Court of Cassation declared the minister’s decision “nullified”. But Minister Movsisyan handed down the same illegal decision a second time and stripped the Sipan-1 company of its Litchkvaz-Tey operating license.

Silva Hambardzoumyan again petitioned the courts but by that time the Ministry had put the Litchkvaz-Tey gold mine up for auction. The mine was obtained by the Sagamar Company.

The Administrative Court concluded that the decision by the minister was legal. The case is now in the Court of Appeals but Hambardzoumyan says she has lost all hope in getting a just verdict from the courts in Armenia.

Hambardzoumyan’s lawyer, Karen Tounyan, describes the actions of Minister Movsisyan regarding the judicial sytem in the following manner – I’ll stand atop Masis and spit on your forehead.

The lawyer refers to last week’s environmental public hearings during which the Sagamar Company’s presentation was videotaped. Tounyan notes that in reality Sagamar presented a package belonging to Sipan-1 that had been shown to government officials back in 2006.

“They were so negligent that the name Sipan-1 wasn’t erased on some of the documents. Even some of the numbers didn’t correspond to the Sagamar license and the name Sipan-1 shows up on some of the maps,” says Tounyan.

The lawyer says he’ll leave it up to others to conclude how the package wound up in the hands of Sagamar since the documents were being kept by the Ministry of Energy.

Silva Hambardzoumyan says: “Sagamar purchased the Litchkvaz-Tey gold mine at the ridiculously low price of 198 million AMD. No one participated in the auction. It wasn’t permitted. I purchased the mine for $25 million and also paid off the debt of $1.5 million.”

Hambardzoumyan says all of this was done in favour of Serop Der-Boghossian. She says that when the American-Armenian businessman was mired in the paedophilia scandal, he was forced out of Sagamar and the company remained the sole property of the Russians.

“Then Serop’s wife said she would expose everything and so they were forced to give Serop the Akhtala factory,” Hambardzoumyan says. “I am quite familiar with what is going on. I follow their steps daily and have met with Serop’s wife.”

As to what Serop’s wife was about to expose, Hambardzoumyan notes, “His wife has a lot to say, about the events of 1999. She’s keeping it to herself so that they let her husband off quickly. The wife threatened to go to the press if they didn’t.”

Hambardzoumyan says she’s ready to battle till the end, all the way to the European Court. And that she’ll leave Armenia with a nice sum of money.

When asked if she believed that Armenia’s president would take an interest in the matter once given the true facts, Hambardzoumyan answered that she doesn’t personally know Serzh Sargsyan.

“It’s the president who should express a desire to see me,” said Hambardzoumyan, “After all, I am the only big woman entrepreneur in Armenia.”

Comments (5)

Andranik
The sickness of corruption & bribery comes from the Communist times, corruption has over come in Armenia, it has become a very common sickness in Armenia.
Levik
She called herself...Խոշոր...
Aram
Silva Hambartsoomyan....is she really Big or just rich?
SVETA
BA EREK SERJ@ XOSUM ER VOR GORCARARNERIN PETK E AJAKCEL.....ES ERKRIC EL BAN CHHASKACA )))
Tatyana
Слава богу нашлась хоть одна смелая женщина в этой стране, у которой хватило духа. Мужички-олигархи поучитесь, а то у вас хватает духа только тогда,когда за вашей спиной стоит свора бритоголовых вышибал. Апрес Сильва джан!!! Побольше бы таких смелых.

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