Armenia’s Investigative Committee terminates criminal proceedings in Amulsar gold deposit case

According to the press service of the Investigative Committee, the decision to terminate the proceedings was made after a string of interviews, seizure and analysis of documents from public and private organizations and a comprehensive examination conducted by the experts of Elars and T.C. companies.
It said all necessary and possible investigative and procedural actions were taken during the investigation, but no factual data was obtained to prove that criminal actions had been committed while preparing the environmental impact assessment of the Amulsar mine.
"In this connection on December 21 on the basis of absence of corpus delicti a decision was made to terminate the proceedings,’ the Investigative Committee said.
The development of the Amulsar project has been at a standstill since 2019 due to local blockades. In July 2018, the Lydian Armenia, granted the exclusive right to develop the Amulsar gold deposit in the southeastern Armenian province of Vayots Dzor, filed a complaint in support of a criminal investigation against activists at the blockades, which was later upheld in court.
That same month, a criminal investigation was opened into whether Armenian public officials had withheld information regarding potential environmental damage at Amulsar. The Armenian authorities allocated nearly $400,000 to Lebanon-based Earth Link & Advanced Resources Development (ELARD) for an independent review of the project’s environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) as part of that investigation.
The independent review was published in September. Referring to it Prime Minister Pashinyan appeared to permit the mine to go ahead despite protests in Jermuk and Yerevan. However, several days later Pashinyan requested that Armenia’s Ministry of Environment decide whether a further environmental impact assessment (EIA) was required for the Amulsar project.
On August 28, 2019 Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held a videoconference with representatives of ELARD and Lydian Armenia, following which he said new circumstances turned out which need to be studies and evaluated.
An ELARD expert pointed out the need for a new study based on updated data, noting the inadequacy of the mitigation measures proposed by Lydian and the need to review the environmental impact assessment.
Lydian Armenia, established in 2005 and owned by Lydian International LLC, extract gold in Armenia. The Amulsar Gold Mine program is the company's first project in Armenia. The Amulsar is the second biggest gold field, which contains 31 million tons of gold ore and 40 tons of a pure gold. It sits in the south-eastern area of Armenia, 13 kilometers from Jermuk. -0--0-