Author: Harut Sassounian

Another Azerbaijan-related major corruption scandal is brewing in Europe. The country’s crooked officials have swindled billions of petrodollars for their personal benefit while the majority of the Azeri people live in abject poverty.

The latest example is on the front pages of most British newspapers. Mrs. Zamira Hajiyeva, 55, the wife of an Azerbaijani banker, has spent over $21 million by shopping at the Harrods luxury department store in London between 2006 and 2016.

The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency alleged that stolen funds were used to buy a $15 million, five-bedroom house in the exclusive London neighborhood of Knightsbridge, 100 yards from the doors of Harrods. The house is now worth $20 million. She is also accused of spending almost $14 million to purchase a golf and country club in Ascot, The Guardian newspaper reported. Incredibly, Mrs. Hajiyeva owns two reserved parking spaces in Harrods at a cost of $500,000 a year. She was given permission to live in the UK eight years ago under a visa scheme for wealthy investors, without checking her source of funds.

“Mrs. Hajiyeva is the wife of Jahangir Hajiyev, 57, the former chairman of the state-owned International Bank of Azerbaijan. In 2016 he was sentenced to 15 years in jail for defrauding the bank out of $3 billion,” according to Rupert Neate of The Guardian.

Mrs. Hajiyeva’s lawyers in London had petitioned to keep her name, the husband’s name, their nationality and his bank a secret. However, the British court of appeal lifted the veil of secrecy at the request of the media.

The National Crime Agency stated that Mrs. Hajiyeva used 35 American Express, Mastercard, and Visa credit cards issued by her husband’s bank to fund her spending spree. On one trip to Harrods she spent $200,000 on Boucheron, a luxury jewelry, perfume and watches brand. On another trip she bought $132,000 of Cartier jewelry. She also purchased a $42 million Gulfstream G550 jet. Her wine cellar is stocked with some of the world’s most expensive bottles, The Guardian reported. Meanwhile, Mrs. Hajiyeva’s daughter from a previous marriage, who was a student in London, had shares worth $20 million paying dividends of $1.3 million a year. Mrs. Hajiyeva also has two 17 and 20 year old sons from her current husband, who were also educated in private British schools.

Mrs. Hajiyeva’s husband gave her $1.3 million to invest in British government bonds, and received $26,000 monthly expense allowance. However, after her husband’s arrest, she fled Azerbaijan and began selling her family’s silver at Christie’s auction house.

The Azerbaijani authorities are interested in questioning Mrs. Hajiyeva in connection with her husband’s banking case, accusing her and other family members of serving as conduits for Mr. Hajiyev’s scheme to take money out of the country.

Mrs. Hajiyeva is the first person in the UK’s new anti-corruption law — “Unexplained Wealth Order” — designed to target suspected corrupt foreign officials who have potentially laundered stolen money. Justice Supperstone demanded that she explain the source of the funds for her lavish purchases. If she is unable to do so, her properties could be seized. The Judge agreed that “this evidence is significant in the light of the reports of Mr. Hajiyev’s trial allegations made against him included abuse of his position at the Bank by issuing credit cards in the names of family members, through which large debts were run up against the Bank.”

Mr. Jahangir Hajiyev, as chairman of the IBA bank between 2001 and 2008, had an official salary of $71,000 a year. However, Werner Capital, which manages property investment for wealthy people, produced a report in 2011 disclosing that Mr. Hajiyev was worth $73 million, The Guardian reported. The prosecutor, Jonathan Hall, who represented the National Crime Agency, announced: “As a state employee between 1993 and 2015, it is very unlikely that such a position would have generated sufficient income to fund the acquisition of the property.”

In court, Mrs. Hajiyeva stated that she had no knowledge of the source of funds for her purchases, claiming that her husband was responsible for the payments. She described Mr. Hajiyev as “a man of substantial means.” She has hired a team of highly paid British lawyers to defend her in court.

For the time being Mrs. Hajiyeva’s expensive London mansion and the golf and country club remain frozen and cannot be sold.

It remains to be seen if the British government would seize Mrs. Hajiyeva’s properties in London. There are many more such cases which will come before the courts in the coming months, exposing the widespread corruption of Azeri officials who have stolen billions of dollars from their country’s oil wealth, investing them for their personal benefit in many countries around the world!

Throughout the years, since Armenia’s independence in 1991, I have had the unique opportunity of spending hundreds of hours with the country’s three previous Presidents, discussing privately with them Armenia’s many problems. I offered them my professional assessments and frequently my criticisms of the way they were running the country. Although the Presidents were not pleased that I was pointing out their shortcomings and mistakes, they understood that my intent was not to disparage them, but to help them improve the living conditions of the population.

Ever since the earthquake of 1988, I have been doing charitable work in Armenia and Artsakh, initially as President of the United Armenian Fund (UAF), subsequently the Armenia Artsakh Fund (AAF), and as Vice Chairman of Kirk Kerkorian’s Lincy Foundation, delivering over $800 million of humanitarian aid to Armenia and Artsakh by the UAF and AAF, and managing $242 million of infrastructure projects funded by Lincy. Despite all the corruption prevailing in Armenia during those years, I fought hard to protect the humanitarian supplies and funds, persistently bringing to the attention of the Presidents the abuses by high-rankling officials, and demanding that they be disciplined or fired.

During my 58 trips to Armenia and Artsakh, I saw firsthand the miserable conditions of most people in our homeland, deprived of money, food, medicines, clothing and other basic needs. Seeing the Presidents’ neglect of the people’s deprivations, I frequently and forcefully brought their dismal situation to the attention of the country’s leadership.

I was particularly upset when I heard government officials speaking about Armenia needing investments, not charity. I found such remarks to be callous of the people’s suffering. After each such pronouncement, I confronted these officials explaining the negative effect of their statements.

Consequently, I was surprised when Armenia’s new Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, a man of the people, during his remarks in New York on September 23, 2018, announced that in the context of Armenia-Diaspora relations, work must be encouraged, not charity: “Armenians can assist Armenia only with one option: carry out economic activity in Armenia, establish any business, and work. Today, Armenia’s understanding is the following: It is a country where it is possible to carry out economic activity, establish a business, earn profits, get rich and enrich. Our message to all of you is the following: get rich and enrich. We want Armenia to be known as such a country. Not charitable, but developmental projects must be implemented in Armenia….”

To be fair to the Prime Minister, in his speech, he also spoke about many other topics which I agree with whole-heartedly. He has tremendous support both in Armenia and around the world! He has practically eliminated corruption in Armenian society and has represented the voice of the people who had remained voiceless for more than a quarter of a century since independence. However, just as I have told the previous Presidents, I would like to provide the following explanations to the new Prime Minister:

1) I fully support the Prime Minister’s initiative that Armenia needs economic investments in order to create jobs and expand exports. By creating jobs, not only the people will have the income to pay for their daily expenses, but the government will also have the tax revenues to support the country’s and population’s multiple needs.

2)  However, the Prime Minister’s urging that “work must be encouraged, not charity,” would deprive hundreds of thousands of poor people of their basic necessities. Investments take time to trickle down to the people and produce results. In the meantime, if charitable efforts are discouraged, many poor people will not survive!

3) Not all Diaspora Armenians can invest in the Armenian Republic. There are dozens of charitable organizations which by law cannot get involved in economic activities, as they can only do charity. Since the earthquake and Armenia’s independence, Armenian and international charities have provided a large amount of aid to Armenia and Artsakh. If it were not for this humanitarian assistance, the standard of living would have been even lower, jeopardizing the survival of many Armenians. By discouraging charity, we are simply asking charitable organizations not to help the needy people of Armenia.

4) Armenian governments so far have been unable to meet the many needs of their population due to lack of money. Diaspora’s charitable organizations have provided the aid that the government could not. If there were no charitable assistance in Armenia ever since independence, the people’s many needs would not have been taken care of and Armenia would have been a poorer country!

5) Even if the Diaspora would start investing in Armenia today, that does not mean that the influx of new funds would take care of all the needs of the people overnight. Certainly, a large number of people would eventually be employed, but many others, such as the elderly, would still be left with hardly any income from their negligible pensions. Those who are unaware of the extent of appalling poverty in Armenia should read the Guardian newspaper’s Sept. 29, 2018 article by Nick Danziger, titled: “‘It’s better to die’: the struggle to survive poverty in Armenia.”

6) There is the mistaken notion that if there were many investments in Armenia, there would be no need for charity. In almost all countries, even in the most advanced ones, there are hundreds of charitable organizations that tend to the needs of the poor people. In the United States alone, billions of dollars are provided annually to needy individuals and families by charitable organizations. If the Americans require charity, Armenians would certainly need charitable assistance for a long time to come!

Paradoxically, Prime Minister Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakopyan, recently launched her own charitable organization “My Step Foundation” to support educational, healthcare, social and cultural projects. She is doing what’s absolutely necessary because the people of Armenia desperately need help!

Despite the many violations of Armenian cultural and religious rights in Turkey, there are some Armenians in Istanbul who praise the Turkish regime and particularly its fascist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

These few pro-Erdogan Armenians, who enjoy special privileges and access to high-ranking Turkish officials, represent themselves as protectors of the local Armenian community’s interests. But in reality, they have selfish motives. They either have personal business interests with corrupt Turkish leaders or seek to maintain their undeserved positions in Armenian community institutions. One such individual is Bedros Sirinoglu, Chairman of the Board of Sourp Prgich Armenian Hospital in Istanbul.

In a recent interview with journalist Pinar Isik Ardor of Forum USA, a Turkish American newspaper, Sirinoglu made several false statements about the Armenian community in Turkey and distorted the facts of the Armenian Genocide.

Sirinoglu’s words were “shocking,” according to Istanbul’s Nor Marmara Armenian newspaper. Sirinoglu told Forum USA that Armenians have never lived as comfortably as they have been during Erdogan’s leadership! He also made untrue statements about the Armenian Genocide, stating that “the events of 1915 were organized by outside powers intending to dismantle and overthrow the Ottoman Empire.”

Furthermore, Sirinoglu told Forum USA: “Before Erdogan’s time, we could not even paint or repair our churches. We could only do it when the state pretended not to notice such actions.” Sirinoglu repeatedly claimed he has done good deeds for the Armenian community in Turkey. Several years ago, he said he had requested a meeting with Erdogan which was immediately granted. He asked Erdogan to permit the placement of a cross on the dome of the Holy Cross Armenian Church in Akhtamar. He reportedly told Erdogan: “Just as you cannot have a mosque without a minaret, similarly you cannot have a church without a cross.” Sirinoglu claimed that “Erdogan had the cross placed overnight on the Akhtamar church.” If Sirinoglu was so influential, why didn’t he ask Erdogan to restore the status of the Akhtamar as a Armenian church instead of designating it a “museum,” allowing religious services to be performed only once a year! Sirinoglu also ignored the fact that Armenians and others worldwide, including the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul, had demanded the placement of the cross on the dome of the church. Sirinoglu was not the only one to make such a request.

Calling them “fictional scenarios,” Sirinoglu contradicted the various Western reports that Armenian religious rights are restricted in Turkey. The 67-year-old Sirinoglu told the Turkish newspaper: “Since my childhood days Armenians have not had any problems.”

When the Turkish journalist reminded Sirinoglu that some Armenians are not pleased with his words, he responded: “If you don’t speak as they wish, they become hostile. I stand by the state. I do not betray my own country. I am an Armenian, but I am a Turkish compatriot. Our faith orders us to be faithful to the state. Our Bible preaches likewise.”

Sirinoglu’s most controversial remarks pertain to his misinterpretation of the Armenian Genocide. He stated that “he approaches with suspicion the [Armenian victims’] numbers used regarding 1915.” He added that “Armenians, Jews and Greeks were wealthy in that period, which is why there was enmity against them. Now the Armenian population is gradually decreasing. The birth rate is low. The death rate is high. There are also mixed marriages.”

When the Turkish journalist asked Sirinoglu if the Armenians, Greeks and Jews share the same point of view, Sirinolglu answered affirmatively and added: “We only disagree about the events of 1915. Greek Patriarch Bartholomew has a reserved and principled position, also regarding the government. The Jews also like the state, but they are also men of principle. They do not abandon their principles. The Jews living here do not betray Turkey, but they are tied to Israel.”

Finally, Sirinoglu responded to a question regarding the recent decrease in the value of the Turkish Lira. Repeating the same answer given by Erdogan, Sirinoglu blamed foreign powers for orchestrating “this game against the Turkish economy.”

This is not the first time that Sirinoglu has made such false statements on the Armenian Genocide. For example, after meeting with then Prime Minister Erdogan in 2010, he told the Turkish media that “1915 was nothing more than a feud between loving friends, instigated by third parties.” He went on to say that his “grandfather was among the victims, but so were many Turks.”

Back in 2010, Armenians in Istanbul launched a petition announcing that Sirinoglu is not their leader and does not represent the Armenian community. Angered by Sirinoglu’s statements, the petitioners stressed: “We live in a different Turkey,” not the Turkey described by Sirinoglu!