Video: Six Years Ago, Nikol Pashinyan Imagined a Park Where the General Purchased Land, According to Hetq

Yesterday, Hetq published a story detailing the dubious sale of a 0.5-hectare plot belonging to the Ministry of Defense. A general purchased the land from the Ministry for 25 million drams and sold it for 420 million drams; the buyer is a friend of Ishkhan Zakaryan's son.

Today, we received a phone call and then a letter from one of our readers. The caller sent us a video recorded on May 4, 2017, at that very plot owned by the Ministry of Defense. At that time, Nikol Pashinyan was leading the list of the 'Yelq' alliance, which was participating in the Yerevan city council elections (he was the candidate for mayor).

In the video, Pashinyan describes the poor state of waste collection in the Nor Nork administrative district and specifically highlights the plot on Tevosyan Street, which has turned into a dump. This is the same plot that in 2013 General Poghos Poghosyan, the former head of the armament department of the General Staff and the current assistant to the Chief of Staff, purchased from the Ministry of Defense for 25 million drams and then sold to a friend of MP Ishkhan Zakaryan.

Discussing the intended use of the land, Pashinyan stated at the time, 'This area, which is simply green space, has all the potential to be a park. I don’t even know whether this is private land or public land.'