
Archbishop Kjoyan: "It was by a stroke of fate that I travelled to Cyprus"
In response to yesterday’s Hetq article “Offshore Labyrinth: Armenian Style”, the Ararat Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church issued a statement saying that the information contained within has no connection with reality and is merely “a logical continuation of series of slanderous remarks previously raised.”
Official documents obtained by Hetq have revealed the name of Archbishop Navasard Kjoyan (Primate of the Ararat Diocese) as a shareholder in an offshore company, Wilspera Holdings Ltd., allegedly involved in some shady financial transactions.
The diocesan statement also calls on the public at large “not to be taken in by the dissemination of such disinformation.”
Yesterday, Hetq had written that Kjoyan, RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan and Ashot Sukiasyan had a 2010 meeting with businessmen Ruben Mkrtchyan, Sergey Tryukazyuk and Alexander Kalchikovski and that they all later dined at the Noyan Tapan restaurant in Yerevan.
In his interview with Hetq, Mkrtchyan says that he later accompanied Ashot Sukiasyan and Archbishop Kjoyan to Zvartnots Airport where they caught a flight to Cyprus. (Wlispera Holdings Ltd. is registered in Cyprus)
While Archbishop Kjoyan claims this information to be false just three days ago, answering questions posed by ArmenPress, he confessed to having close relations with Ashot Sukiasyan.
Kjoyan told ArmenPress that he has travelled frequently with Sukiasyan and that “by a stroke of fate” he visited Nicosia, Cyprus, at the invitation of Tigran Badalyan, one of his friends.
Here’s more of what Kjoyan told ArmenPress:
“Back then, in March 2011, who would have thought that a year before, as it recently turns out, Ashot Sukiasyan used my name to register his company? I knew that he had a company registered in Cyprus with his partner Sergey. I know that this Sergey is a Belorussian. I had no other information as to Ashot’s Cyprus company...”
Readers will note that the Belorussian “Sergey” mentioned by Kjoyan is actually businessman Sergey Tryukazyuk.
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