Former Mayor Charged with Misconduct

The Special Investigative Service of Armenia has established sufficient evidence during the pre-investigation of a criminal case, indicating that former Yerevan Mayor Yervand Zakaryan and former head of the city's architecture and urban planning department, Arsen Lalayan, abused their official powers, leading to severe consequences.

The information was reported by the press service of the Special Investigative Service.

It has been determined that a 10,000 square meter land area, which was part of the "Victory Park" included in the urban master plan for public green spaces, was unlawfully and groundlessly excluded from the park area by a decision of the Yerevan mayor dated March 12, 2008, under the pretext of revising the territory occupied by the park.

Subsequently, by another decision of the mayor, dated April 8, 2008, contrary to the interests of the service, the mentioned land, which fell under legislative restrictions and was non-privatizable, was sold directly to the "Golden Palace Hotel" LLC at cadastral value of 164,760,000 AMD (approximately 16,476 AMD per square meter).

On May 29, 2015, the said company secured a loan of 2,800,000 USD from one of the commercial banks in Armenia using this land as collateral. Through a series of agreements between the company and the bank, the loan amount increased over time, reaching up to 12 billion AMD, which is approximately 70 times more than the initial purchase price of the land.

Based on the sufficient combination of evidence obtained, the mentioned officials have been charged under Article 308, part 2 of the Criminal Code of Armenia. The pre-investigation is ongoing. Necessary investigative and other procedural actions are being taken to fully clarify the circumstances of the case and identify all individuals involved.