ArmInfo. As part of the criminal case under investigation by the Special Investigation Service (SIS-Ed. note), It was found that in March 28, 2009, a decision of the mayor of Yerevan illegally alienated a territory of 10,000 square meters.
According to the SIS press service, this territory was included in the public green zone according to the general plan of Yerevan, and was unreasonably separated from the Victory Park, under the pretext of specifying the territory of the park, and in the new published general plan it is not listed as part of the green zone.
The Mayor of Yerevan, acting against the interests of the service, on April 8, 2008 sold his other territory, which was not legally expropriated, at a cadastral value of 164.760.000 drams to Golden Palace LLC (that is, at a price of 16.476 drams,( just over $ 30), for 1 sqm).
Then, in 2015, the hotel pledged this territory in one of the commercial banks of Armenia and received a loan of $ 2,800,000.
Subsequently, as a result of changes made to this loan agreement between the bank and the hotel, the loan amount increased to 12 billion drams, that is, 70 fold higher than the deal to purchase this territory. During the investigation, sufficient evidence was collected that the ex-mayor of Yerevan had exceeded his powers to the detriment of the interests of the metropolitan community, on the basis of which a criminal case was instituted against him in part 1 of article 308 of the RA Criminal Code (abuse of power). The preliminary investigation is ongoing, measures are being taken to fully disclose the crime and identify all the perpetrators. It should be noted that from 2003 to 2009, Yervand Zakharyan was the mayor of Yerevan.