Large-scale investigative and other procedural actions have been conducted for a long time in the Investigative Committee to provide the complete, objective and comprehensive investigation of the criminal case on apparent abuses in the process of exploitation permit of Amulsar gold-bearing quartzite mine.

In order to verify the hypotheses of the possible committal of crime by those having participated in the process of provision of exploitation permit of Amulsar numerous interrogations have been conducted, large-scale documents have been confiscated from state and non-state bodies and examined, on the base of the made decisions relevant operative-intelligence measures have been taken, in order to find out a number of circumstances significant for the criminal case ecological, geological, hydrological, geophysical, chemical, construction engineering and economical complex examinations have been commissioned the implementation of which has been assigned to the experts of the companies “Elard” and “TRC”.

On July 22, 2019 the conclusion of the above-mentioned examination was received pursuant to which there are defects, miscalculations, inaccuracies and data gaps in the documents submitted for the purpose of exploitation of Amulsar gold-bearing quartzite mine which had been submitted to the RA authorized body by “Geoteam” CJSC (“Lydian Armenia” currently) and had received a positive conclusion by “Environmental Impact Assessment Center” SNCO.

In connection with the existing contradictions numerous normative legal acts functioning in the mentioned period, among them the RA Law “On Environmental Impact Assessment” (adopted on 21.06.2014) and the legal regulations of the process of defining and approving the methodology of assessment under the provisions of the mentioned law have been examined.

Through investigation it was also found out that the contradictory arguments on the same environmental phenomena and data related to them are conditioned with deep scientific debates on using different methodologies during their calculation and assessment, as well as specific criteria confirmed by the RA legislation and the absence of methodology.

In order to eliminate the defects available in the legal procedure of environmental impact assessment and regulation of examination process, relevant documents have also been sent to the RA Ministry of Environment within the mentioned criminal case.

During preliminary investigation necessary and all possible investigative and procedural actions have been conducted however sufficient data have not been acquired on the allegation that criminal acts have been committed while drawing up the report on the environmental impact assessment of working project of mining complex of Amulsar gold-bearing quartzite mine, examining the report, providing the exploitation permit of the mine. Hence, on 21.12.2021 a decision was made not to conduct criminal prosecution and terminate the proceeding of the criminal case on the base of absence of crimes envisaged by the Point 2 of the Part 1 of the Article 35 of RA Criminal Procedure Code.

The copy of the decision was sent to the RA Ministry of Environment, RA Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure to fill in the gaps that appeared during the examination related to the sub-sectors, to solve the problems.