Painter Hrayr Aganikian, a citizen of the US, was condemned to 9-year imprisonment and is currently kept in the Nubarashen Correctional Facility of the Ministry of Justice. We have already talked about both the preliminary investigation of that case and the trial in the law court. Let us mention only that the preliminary investigation lasted for a year and four months and the trial for 5.5 years.
Representatives of the US Embassy attended the court sessions in the trial court.
H. Aganikian appealed his verdict in the court of appeals on criminal cases of the Republic of Armenia and it was left unchanged and the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. The convict that is accused of usury and serious fraud has applied to the European Court of Human Rights.
“In 1997, first I, then my brothers with their families and grandchildren returned to the Motherland from the US. We are the kind of people that cannot overcome the inhibition of immigrant and long for their origins, land and water at any cost. Being a painter, I thought it was rational to cooperate with a diligent businessman who is proficient in a certain sphere, according to the principle ‘be generous to a fault.’ However, after 7-year search full of misfortunes, I decided to rent land on my own and to grow an orchard. The result was that the prosecutor demanded 13-year imprisonment and I was condemned to 9 years of imprisonment with confiscation of a half of the property (which equals the whole) and 12 ha of land I rented in Kotayk was left uncultivated,” says the American-Armenian intellectual.
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He represents the activities of the Armenian businessmen. According to H. Aganikian, “successful” businessmen he met actually had large debts, they paid percentages and were looking for “naïve patriots” from the Diaspora, in order to deceive.
H. Aganikian informs that he attained real estate from a citizen by the name of Gharibyan in 2000 signing a purchase contract in return for $9000 debt of his brother. During the court session, Aganikian presented to the court the decision made on the civil case between the parties, according to which the “aggrieved party” admitted that they owed him $9000.
H. Aganikian founded an LLC to cut diamonds, attained devices for that purpose and got licenses. That initiative was left unfinished, he was deceived, but aggrieved persons emerged and made a demand from Aganikian.
“I was shy about making my personal and business odyssey public. There is no political intrigue. Who cares?” says H. Aganikian.
H. Aganikian informs that he has supported the Artsakh defense with money he collected in Los Angeles since 1990, he was the chairman of the Support for the Country Union, members of which were 4 local periodicals, “I think I am obliged to warn my fellow countrymen who are going to come to Armenia to light their ‘candle.’ What do you gain, if people like me come and be involved in such a quagmire of discrimination? Let people know that they walk on a minefield of crime and prejudice.”
Ruzan MINASYAN
