The Anti-Corruption Court has ordered a land plot in central Yerevan owned by Ara Abrahamyan, President of the Union of Armenians of Russia, to be returned to the municipality. In turn, Abrahamyan called the verdict politically motivated.
The court’s ruling, issued on 25 July, stipulates that the 2,859.4 square meter plot, valued at approximately ֏944 million ($2.3 million), will be returned to the Yerevan Municipality once the ruling enters into force.
The plot, located at 32 Aram Street, was granted to Abrahamyan’s Soglasie Armenia company in 2007 for construction purposes, according to the Armenian authorities.
However, the owner did not carry out construction work, according to Armenian authorities, and the land remained unused for over three years. Prosecutors elaborated in a comment to Armenian Public TV, that Armenian law defines the basis for terminating the right to a land plot as the failure to use the land plot, or part of it, allocated for construction within three years, unless longer periods are provided
The media also quoted prosecutors as saying that no justified reasons were presented during the court hearings for the failure to use the land plot.
The lawsuit against Abrahamyan’s company was filed in 2023. Aside from the mentioned plot of land, two other lawsuits demanding the return of a building and surrounding land located in the same area.
In its response on 29 July, Abrahamyan’s company vowed to appeal what they called the ‘unlawful judicial act’. Additionally, they insisted that the ruling was ‘due to the activities of Ara Abrahamyan’.
Abrahamyan has criticised the Armenian authorities multiple times in recent months in the context of the ongoing tension between the Armenian authorities and the church which escalated since May, as well as for the arrest of Russia–Armenian tycoon Samvel Karapetyan in July.
The company further claimed that they had been undertaking the required construction activities, in turn accusing unnamed administrative bodies for ‘the delays, difficulties, and obstacles encountered’.
Aside from his company, Abrahamyan also offered his assessment of the court ruling in a comment to the Russian state-run media outlet TASS, calling the decision as ‘illegal and has the nature of a political order’.
Abrahamyan further disclosed his intention of political involvement in Armenia. Even though he stated his lack of plans to take part in the 2026 parliamentary elections, he expressed his intention to ‘use all my opportunities to help unite healthy forces [...] to revive Armenia’.
‘The history of the last seven years is a sad testimony of how [Prime Minister Nikol] Pashinyan, manipulating sentiments, made people who believed him unwitting accomplices to the deception and national tragedy that we are witnessing today’, Abrahamyan said.
In mid-July, Karapetyan, who has been detained on charges of making calls for the overthrow of the government, announced plans to create a ‘fundamentally new political force’ through which he could cooperate with ‘like-minded people’.
Yousef Bardouka
