168 Hours: The Story of the Municipality's Kamaz Vehicles Gains Interest with Intriguing Details

168 Hours newspaper reports: During the Yerevan City Council meeting on November 26, the leader of the "Luminous" faction, Davit Khajakyan, announced a crime report, indicating that the mayor and his deputy had abused their official powers. Specifically, he stated that the mayor had delegated his powers to a deputy who is not a city council member and, according to the law on local self-government in Yerevan, is not authorized to execute the mayor's responsibilities.

Khajakyan also claimed that a document was falsified, transferring powers to Deputy Mayor Hayk Sargsyan, and he pointed out Article 309 of the Criminal Code regarding the transfer of official powers. The newspaper's correspondent turned to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Armenia to find out if an investigation had begun on this matter and what results had been achieved. In response, Aravic Khachatryan, head of the Public Relations Department of the Prosecutor General's Office, stated, "The municipality has been requested to provide all the documents related to these processes, and the mentioned circumstances will also be subject to investigation."

When asked what measures had been taken by the Prosecutor's Office concerning the donation of Kamaz vehicles, given that it had been announced that an investigation had commenced, the office responded that the investigation is ongoing.

In an interview with 168 Hours, leader of the Republican Party's youth organization Hayk Mamijanyan provided quite interesting information regarding the companies that transferred Kamaz vehicles to the Yerevan municipality as a 'donation.' When questioned whether the clarifications made by Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan during a Facebook live broadcast were convincing, he replied, "It was in vain that he presented it, because the owner of one of the documents he presented is Vardan Felixovich Tsolakyan, who probably has connections with Minister Tsolakyan, and the owner of another organization is Emil Yeghiazaryan. This name doesn't mean anything unless we know that he is the owner of the Ijevan Winery and Brandy Factory, who is also a close friend of Sipan Pashinyan. And the climax of this story is 'AJ Group.' This organization, although bankrupt, has received a building permit. But I have yet another surprise: I have a document indicating that employees of the Yerevan municipality received bonuses on November 27. This list includes all deputy mayors and only 8 out of 18 heads of city departments, namely, the loyal ones. The deputy mayors received bonuses of 420,000 drams each. The total fund for bonuses amounts to 4.8 million drams."

For more details, see today’s issue of the newspaper.