‘Castration’: Businessman Charged with Sexual Abuse got ‘Light Punishment,’ Believes Akhtala Mayor

Local daily Joghovurd spoke to Akhtala mayor Haykazn Khachikyan, asking him to comment on the court ruling in the case of owner of Metal Prince Ltd. Corporation and Akhtala Ore Processing Plant CJSC Serop Der-Boghossian, who on Nov. 17 was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing minors.

If we take into consideration that such a deed was done to minors, if we compare that in the US, they are sentenced to 30 years in prison for such a deed, while in some countries they are punished more severely, then it could be said that for Serop Der-Boghossian, this was a light punishment,” said Khachikyan.

The mayor of the northern Armenian town of Akhtala in Lori marz (province) said he was in favor of MP Viktor Dallakyan‘s legislative initiative to punish such offenders by castration. “Merely castration is not enough for such acts; he must also be sentenced to prison,” said Khachikyan.

Asked how is it that the parents of those children who were sexually abused by Der-Boghossian tried to support him, the mayor said that most of those mothers don’t have husbands. “I know, how they behaved before and how they behave today. At one time, they earned their bread in makeshift huts on the edge of the road to Bagratashen. There are altogether 10 children named in the case and the majority of them have only a single parent; they are children of vulnerable groups. The child of a normal family wouldn’t be among the victims; the parents would be more attentive in raising their children,” he said.

At the same time, Khachik assured the reporter that the parents’ opinion about Serop Der-Boghossian is not Akhtala’s opinion. “In Akhtala, they react negatively to Serop, to the parents who back him and the plant’s management. During these months they tried to create an atmosphere of fear, that Serop will come, he’s now relaxing in Tsaghkadzor or Jermuk, that he isn’t detained, that there’s no problem. They were doing that so people didn’t protest. Through psychological pressure they tried to suppress people so that during the trial they don’t raise a wave of protest. The people are in a dire social condition, subsisting on low salaries and those psychological pressures had a certain impact,” said the Akhtala mayor.