“No one can embezzle a single cent without S. Sargsyan’s immediate knowledge”
11:30, June 6, 2016 | News, Other news
3 former high-ranking officials of the RA Ministry of Defense, Major General Melsik Chilingaryan and Colonels Armen Margaryan and Mher Papyan are charged with abuse of power that caused grave consequences.
Major General Melsik Chilingaryan, former head of the Defense Ministry Armaments Department, and Colonel Armen Margaryan, former head of vehicle service of Armament Department, are charged with purchasing unclaimed spare parts for 145 million AMD. According to the Criminal Code, this act is punished with imprisonment of 3-7 years. And according to official information, Mher Papyan, former Head of the Division of Chemical, Engineering and Intelligence assets of the Defense Ministry Logistical Support Department, had a personal interest and created favorable conditions for the company owned by his relative to win the tender for the procurements of the Defense Ministry.
Touching upon the topic of the recent arrests, A. Sakunts, Chairman of HCA Vanadzor, said that the procurements with secret formulation definitely contained corruption risks and HCA Vanadzor human rights defenders raised this issue repeatedly.
“I would like to recall again the well-known letter of General Mikayel Grigoryan addressed to the RA Minister of Defense back in 2011. In that letter, the General talked about widespread stealing. This means that the alert about stealing is raised not only by NGOs and journalists but also by a person better familiar with the system, who was concerned over the size of the embezzlement and wrote this letter as a message. “
According to Sakunts, this alarm received no response.
The human rights defender assumes that the authorities might have decided internally to strengthen somehow the control, but it is clear that the actions taken to prevent crimes committed in secret do not yield any results. The system remains closed and cannot change anything inside.
“These recent arrests reveal one thing, namely that the crimes in question were committed back in 2011-2012. This means that if presently the investigative agencies could examine the purchase documents of those years, the investigative agencies have no time limits. And one case concerned the procurements of 2015. I emphasize these years as the letter was disseminated at that time; however, 5 years passed before they decided to speak out,” he said.
He concludes that the defense department and law enforcement agencies, especially the military police, military prosecutor’s office and counterintelligence were very well aware of the facts above; otherwise such documents could not have immediately appeared in possession of the investigative agencies.
“They are well aware of the activities of everybody and have enough compromising records. And such compromising records are put into circulation or put in action by expediency or by necessity; the recent cases can serve as an example. After all, those materials must have been sent first to the Investigation Department to be examined, and such documents are now too available for the investigative agencies. It turns out that somebody has already sent the documents. And if somebody has sent them, it means that they possessed them back in 2011-2012. This means that proceedings should have been initiated not only on embezzlement, but also on being aware of and not reporting the crime. Why do they initiate criminal proceedings right now? Because the April war revealed the entire impact and image of corruption. These are tiny crumbs for the public and short scenes aimed at preservation of the citadel of corruption. And the godfather on the top of the corruption citadel is S. Sargsyan who confined himself to dismissing his immediate marionette, Mirzabekyan. S. Sargsyan’s immediate marionette was Mirzabekyan, responsible for supplies.”
According to the human rights defender, the RA authorities are trying in this way to avoid punishment and responsibility and prolong their existence.
“I can just say for sure that no one can embezzle a single cent without S. Sargsyan’s direct knowledge.”
Apart from initiation of criminal proceedings, the human rights defender highlights the solution of the crime. According to him, such scenes are staged by reputation of the authorities and only result from arrangements.
“Well, suppose criminal proceedings are initiated against those people, how objective will the investigation be? Now that General was taken to hospital. He immediately developed health problems. This means that the godfather makes a sacrifice on the one hand and grants protection on the other. That is, an intended mechanism of responsibility is applied so that no one speaks out because after all, such people can say by whose order they had committed the crime and with whom they had shared the money. The issues on who backed the entire mechanism – and nothing can be done without backing – will no doubt remain beyond the scope of the investigation.”
According to Sakunts, the procurements in the Defense Ministry system are based on kickback mechanism, and he has stated about it repeatedly. They voiced many facts, but neither drew any conclusion, nor refuted them, nor held liable those who issued such statements.
He recalled the notorious case of buffalo meat when the director of Kapan meat plant was held liable. “Also, did you know that kangaroo meat was served at the army? Or did you know that 200 thousand USD were allocated for the annual message of the RA Ministry of Defense? In fact, it appears that the kickback mechanism is the basis for procurements. And we mean this when saying that such procurements should be done in a transparent way.
One more question: do we have a guarantee that the same thing is not happening now? I just can argue and say that the kickback mechanism still persists in the Defense Ministry system. Nobody has any argument to substantiate or refute that the kickback mechanism is no longer applied. Due to the embezzlement of those funds, the system was so weak that we sustained those 92 casualties. And this direct link should have made a subject of investigation. If a general thinks about embezzlement by one half of his brain, would he have any time to think about protective mechanisms?”