«Hraparak». Convicted for Robbery Appointed Acting Director

«Hraparak» newspaper reports that on June 4, the Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Suren Papikyan issued an order appointing Ashot Arushanyan as the acting director of the «Hayavtokayan» LLC. Papikyan's spokesperson announced that a competition will be held for the position in the near future, after which the appointment will be final, although the date for the competition has not yet been revealed.

Ashot Arushanyan, who has held the position of acting director, was sentenced in 2012 to 5 years and 6 months in prison for “theft of particularly large sums with prior consent and in a group” as an organizer. He had been working at HSBC Bank since 2008, and from June 2010 onwards, he served as the chief specialist in the risk management department at the bank.

Knowing that the deputy director of “Manana Grain” LLC was coming to the bank to settle a $240,000 loan, he organized the robbery together with his classmate Edgar Karakeshishyan. After several days of surveillance, the criminals broke the window of the vehicle belonging to Armen Manukyan, the deputy director of “Manana Grain”, stealing 56 million 400 thousand drams from the car. Notably, the person who testified against Arushanyan was later found hanging.

This individual’s punishment was commuted to a lenient regime during the Velvet Revolution, and he had supported the revolutionaries, including materially. Essentially, he is now being rewarded for that support by overlooking his criminal record.