Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Court today rejected a motion claimed by the country’s Prosecutor General Office (PGO) to seize Sil Plaza, a commercial building owned by the Sukiasyan’ family’s Grzo Plaza LLC. 

The Yerevan Municipality sold the building, at 3 Arami Street right off Yerevan’s Republic Square, to Albert Sukiasyan in 1995 for a mere US$5,655.

Grzo Plaza has four shareholders, two of whom are the brothers of National Assembly Deputy Khachatur Sukiasyan, namely Eduard and Robert Sukiasyan. 

The building, according to the sales contract, was supposed to house a shop selling works by Armenian artists in the heart of Yerevan. Instead, the Sukiasyans reconstructed the building and used it for their own business purposes.

Following a 2021 Hetq article on the issue (Land Grab: How a Prime Piece of Yerevan Real Estate was Privatized for Peanuts), the PGO has been calling on the courts to declare the sale contract invalid.

The court today ruled that the PGO missed the one-year deadline to file the seizure motion.

Photo (from left): Judge Rudolph Avagyan, Khachatur Sukiasyan