Youth who Attempted Suicide Received Good Pay, Asserts Copper Plant Manager

The 23-year-old young man who attempted suicide in Kajaran last week in a police testimony said he worked at the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine (Plant) where he receives such a low wage that he was driven to kill himself, reports Aravot.am, the online version of local paper Aravot.

Zangezur General Manager Maxim Hakobyan, in an interview with the news site, affirmed the young man works with them, but, according to the manager, he doesn’t receive a low salary.

“That boy is an orphan. In 2008, he came to us; someone intervened and we gave him employment. I gave him the average [monthly] salary up front when I heard this. He gets a [monthly] salary of 160,000 [drams; approx. $411 USD] — that’s not little for a novice laborer. And there’s no such thing [that he gets a low wage]; it’s a lie; if there was such a thing, he would come once and appeal [to us]. We have this system here, that heart surgeries in the entire marz [province], whether they’re in Kajaran or somewhere else, young or old, [pro-government] or opposition, the Combine pays for all the treatments. You know, in Nork-Marash, surgeries cost 2, 3 million [drams; approx. $5140–7,710 USD]. They come, with their prescriptions in their hands; they know that if they’re from our province, they send the prescription, the money is paid beforehand,” he said.