Rafael Shahmuradian's Killing

[MosJan]

CRIMINAL CASE INITIATED ON ARMENIA-LADA PRESIDENT'S KILLING

 

09.02.2005 15:46

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The law-enforcement bodies of Tolyatti have initiated a criminal case on the killing of Armenia-Lada President Rafael Shahmuradian. Shahmuradian's body with several firearm wounds was found near Tolyatti on the M-5 highway. Presently his bodyguards, car and case are being searched for. As reported by the Tolyatti police department, while examining the body the policemen found $10 000. However later it was found out that the businessman's case with $250 000 was stolen. The car has not been found either. The law-enforcers found a pistol shell (admittedly of a Makarov pistol), however they refrain from announcing the possible motives of the murder yet. The investigators consider that if the businessman wanted to pay cash for a recurrent delivery, he was to all appearances going to Tolyati accompanied by his bodyguards. The search of the car and the people, who accompanied Shahmuradian is under way at the moment

[MosJan]

Murder in Russia: Prominent Armenian businessman slain in Tolyatti

 

By Aris Ghazinyan

ArmenianNow Reporter

 

Authorities in the Russian city of Tolyatti have opened a murder investigation after the body of a leading Armenian businessman was found in the street on February 6.

 

The investigation is to reveal who was interested in murder of successful businessman

The investigation is to reveal who was interested in murder of successful businessman

Rafael Shahmuradyan was the director-general of Armenia-Lada, a Russian-Armenian joint venture company that sold the Russian-made cars in Armenia. Workmen discovered his body in Tolyatti’s Komsomol district on Sunday afternoon. The Armenian businessman was killed with three shots in the head.

 

Shahmuradyan, 53, was one of Armenia’s best-known businessmen. He was the official distributor for not only VAZ but also other Russian auto companies such as GAZ and UAZ.

 

Armenia-Lada won the contest in 2003 for “The Best International Truck Haulage Company” among states of the former Soviet Union. The company has operated in Armenia since and now imports 8,000 cars a year into Armenia. There is an opinion that the company managed to start its activities in the mid-80s when Gorbachev had only come to power largely due to Shahmuradyan’s blood relation to one of the authorities of the underworld, Raf nicknamed “Svoi”. Raf was killed in a London prison in the early 1990s. Besides, Shahmuradyan had good relations with Armenia’s KGB chief Marius Yuzbashyan, who was murdered in 1993.

 

According to the “Iravunk” weekly, Shahmuradyan had quite warm relations also with Armenia’s ex-Director of the National Security Service Karlos Petrosyan, who was called by many the shadow patron of Armenia-Lada. There is an opinion that Shahmuradyan’s positions were weakened after Karlos Petrosyan resigned in early November 2004.

 

The murder came nine months after Shahmuradyan survived an attempt on his life in Yerevan in May 2004. He suffered gunshot wounds and narrowly escaped death when men in a white Niva opened fire on his Nissan car in the central Baghramyan Avenue, close to the Barekamutyun metro station.

 

Shahmuradyan was one of the few wealthy businessmen in Armenia not to employ permanent bodyguards. He voiced suspicions after the attack that the Transport and Communications Minister Andranik Manukyan had been involved in some way.

 

Manukyan, who denied any involvement, owns the rival Ararat-Lada company, created as the first joint-stock company in Armenia in 1991. The shooting was investigated by the prosecutor’s office of the Yerevan communities of Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun, but no charges were brought.

 

“I got seriously involved in this automobile business at the beginning of the 1990s when I didn’t even think that I would ever become a minister. Today I do not attend to this business, but Ararat-Lada is my property,” said Manukyan in 2004.

 

Iinformation was leaked to Armenian newspapers in the middle of last year about the possible sale of shares of Ararat-Lada to Shahmuradyan, who was allegedly to pay Manukyan $1 million in return. It is not known whether that deal took place, though the Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper reported that Shahmuradyan believed that “the deal with Ararat-Lada cannot and should not compensate for his own blood.”

 

Armenia-Lada trade center in Yerevan

Armenia-Lada trade center in Yerevan

In the autumn of 2004, when Russia temporarily sealed its border with Georgia, through which most Russian cars are transported to Armenia, Shahmuradyan warned that his company would increase the importation of foreign cars unless the problem was resolved quickly. He stated: “The Armenian consumer will not suffer from this, on the contrary, the Russian exporter may suffer, since Armenia–Lada is the main importer of Russian cars in the republic.”

 

According to some reports, this statement was received badly in Tolyatti. Shahmuradian did not attend a conference in the city in December of marketing managers from 86 VAZ dealer centers, and left Armenia-Lada to be represented by its manager Karen Nalchajyan.

 

It appears too that nobody met Shahmuradyan at Samara airport on his fatal February visit to Tolyatti. The giant production center of the Russian automobile industry has no airport of its own, so visitors must travel to Tolyatti by car from Samara.

 

Armenia-Lada First Deputy Director General Eduard Barseghyan, who recently came from Tolyatti to Yerevan, revealed some details to the “Haykakan Zhamanak” newspaper, saying that Shahmuradyan had left for Samara alone, without entourage or bodyguards.

 

“He was to be met there. The law-enforcement bodies are now intensively investigating what car he got into and who met him,” Barseghyan said. “He was to be met at the airport by a certain Armenia-Lada Tolyatti branch worker Ashot, an Armenian born in Chechnya. Currently, he is under arrest. At the same time, Tolyatti’s law-enforcers are questioning Armenia-Lada Tolyatti branch employees.”

 

Barseghyan rejects the version of robbery as groundless saying that it was not the company’s policy that people representing it have large sums of money about them. He added that all large deals are made through the banking system. According to this version, $250,000 were stolen from Shahmuradyan.

 

“Shahmuradyan had $27,000 with him, a mobile phone, a case, from which only $9,000 remained,” said Barseghyan.

 

On February 9, Shahmuradyan’s body was transported to Yerevan and the funeral was to be held today.

 

Tolyatti Prosecutor’s Office investigator Andrey Osipov recently told “Radiolur” Armenia Service that he might come to Armenia for the purpose of investigating the Armenia part of the case.

 

The Russian city of Stavropol on Volga was renamed Tolyatti in 1964 in honor of the leader of the Italian communists Palmiro Togliatti, who died in the same year. The city gained fame in 1966 with the construction of the Volga Automobile Plant (VAZ) and mass production of Italian-styled Lada Zhiguli cars began in the Soviet Union.