Author: Badalian Vardan

ZHOGHOVURD: ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK DISSATISFIED WITH ARMENIAN AUTHORITIES

tert.am
19.07.12

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan met Wednesday the vice president
of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Xiaoyu Zhao.

The paper says according to the presidential press release the parties
rated high the cooperation, the implemented works, while the paper’s
sources claim the Asian Development Bank is said to be dissatisfied
with the Armenian authorities as for already a year the construction
works of North-South road funded by the bank have not launched.

Rumors are even circulating that the authorities have addressed the
funds to other sector and now the bank’s vice president has personally
arrived in Armenia to find out the situation on site.

The paper did not exclude that the bank will suspend its cooperation
with Armenia. It reminds that President Sargsyan has strictly
reprimanded the former transport and communication minister Manuk
Vardanyan for the failure of the project not giving him any office
after the elections.

RICHARD GIRAGOSIAN: ‘A TROJAN HORSE’ IN ARMENIA
By Appo Jabarian

Executive Publisher/Managing Editor
USA Armenian Life Magazine
July 18, 2012

For many decades now Turkey and its cronies have been fast at work to
carry out their objectives in exploiting so-called ‘soft’, ‘balanced’
or ‘diplomatic’ Armenians who are inclined to play down Armenian
demands for justice.

The ‘soft’, ‘balanced’ or ‘diplomatic’ Armenians also tend to
pander to denialist Turkey; to over-amplify its ‘importance’ and
‘indispensability’ to Armenia’s future at the cost of Armenian
capitulation to Turkey that still occupies Armenian lands; refuses
to make amends for the Turkish-perpetrated Armenian Genocide.

One such ‘balanced’ and ‘diplomatic’ Armenian is Richard Giragosian,
Director of Regional Studies Center (RSC) in Armenia.

Ironically, during the month of April (2010), when millions of
Armenians around the world were mourning the annihilation of one and
one half million victims of genocide and the loss of their ancestral
homelands in Western Armenia and Cilicia Mr. Giragosian was actively
courting Turkey.

In an April 18, 2010 article in “Newsweek Turkey,” Mr. Giragosian said
that as an Armenian he was “ashamed and horrified with the Armenians’
views of their Turkish neighbors. I was horrified … I was an Armenian
nationalist, I was brought up as an active and aggressive Diasporan
Armenian in an atmosphere of hatred and fear against the Turks.”

“On every April 24, I started to organize demonstrations against the
Turkish Embassy in Washington during which we were expressing slogans
against the embassy filled with hatred. Yes, I must confess that the
atmosphere had infected me too; where they were teaching fear and
hatred toward the ‘Turks.’ But later on some suspicions surfaced.

I started having disagreements with hawkish Armenians. … During
that time I worked at the U.S. Congress, and became a professional
analyst. … Essentially I had no longer wanted the nationalism which
had the idea of ‘hating others’ as the foundation of its ideology,”
claimed Giragosian.

He also noted: “A comment (on the subject of genocide) should not
influence that deeply on any people – it should neither be the sole
criterion for Armenians nor should it be the greatest insult for
the Turks.”

He has grossly mischaracterized a sizable segment of patriotic
Armenians as ‘radicals’ when in fact thousands of Armenian activists
worldwide endeavored to seek justice.

Lest they pursue the recovery of what was stolen from their people!

Giragosian will qualify them as ‘radicals.’ In his new world view,
becoming a ‘balanced’ individual requires renouncing your rights
to restitutions.

Since when demands for justice by victims of any crime, can make
them liable to be branded as ‘extremists’ when in fact they’re merely
asking what’s rightfully owed – Justice? Playing ‘open-mindedness’
with an unrepentant perpetrator exasperates any situation.

Mr. Giragosian grossly mislabels genocide victims’ legitimate
anger against the Turkish perpetrators and occupiers as ‘hatred
of others.’ As if it’s not enough to be victimized and gravely
dispossessed, now the victims have to deal with the risk of being
mischaracterized as ‘hate mongers.’

It’s preposterous on his part to play ‘diplomat’ when in fact he could
make real contributions to the just resolution of his people’ cause.

At a time when an increasing number of righteous Turks are risking
their freedom and lives to speak out on the importance of justice
for the victims of the genocide, Mr. Giragosian opts to pander to
nationalist and extremist Turks by renouncing justice for his people.

Is Mr. Giragosian aware of the fact that an unprecedented number of
members of the new Turkish generation are becoming knowledgeable and
are recognizing the crime and consequences of the genocide perpetrated
by their grandparents’ generation?

In a revealing segment, he said that “the events that happened to
me have converted me from a militant operative to a collaborator
supporting the normalization process (between Turkey and Armenia) –
a balanced individual.”

In a rare confession he said that his romantic relationship with a
woman from Izmir, Turkey has played an influential role in changing
his attitudes toward Turkey. Are these the ‘events’ that Mr.
Giragosian was referring to which made him renounce his patriotic
principals in exchange for material comfort?

While falling in love with a woman from Turkey may not be an issue, but
an Armenian man’s sudden change of allegiance and adoption of defeatist
position towards Turkey can surely become a source of grave concerns.

It’s ludicrous to see a victim worrying about the truth of the genocide
being a source of ‘insult’ for Turkey. On human level, the perpetrator
should be offering compassion to the victim, and certainly not the
other way around.

How does this development impact his work in Armenia?

“Almost all Armenians (of Armenia) were astonished at my decision to
leave the U.S. and live with them. Some thought that I’m crazy.

Others thought of me as adventurous,” he claimed.

Armenians’ ‘astonishment’ with Giragosian’s ‘repatriation’ turned
into a nightmare when they found out that Giragosian is a strong
supporter of the infamous Turkish-imposed anti-Armenian Protocols.

“After my relocation to Yerevan, undoubtedly the biggest development
was football diplomacy between Turkey and Armenia,” he remarked.

In the light of the so-called ‘rapprochement’ between the two
countries, Giragosian acknowledged that the relations between the
two nations had started long ago, mirroring the secret negotiations
conducted by Armenia’s then Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian.

Encouraging defrauding ‘dialog’ with Turkey can be a major disservice
to the Armenian interests as well as detrimental to both Armenia and
its Diaspora. Conversely, fostering a genuine dialog where the facts
of the Armenian genocide; massive Armenian dispossessions; loss of
homelands in western Armenia and Cilicia; illegal confiscation of
real and personal properties from the victims of the genocide are
no longer regarded upon by Turkey as subject for a debate, can be
beneficial both for Turkey and Armenians. No fair-minded Armenian
would reject an honest and constructive dialog with Turkey.

Little did his admirers in Armenia realize that in their midst they
have a “Trojan Horse’ in Giragosian.

ONE BASKETBALL FOR ALL NON-MUSLIMS

Today’s Zaman
July 18 2012
Turkey

It is an interesting coincidence. I had just watched an old film and
read news coverage shortly thereafter. A scene from this film was
almost identical to the event in the news.

The film I am speaking of is “The Last Castle” by Rod Lurie. It is
about a power struggle taking place in a military prison. This prison
has a warden (James Gandolfini) whose only concern is to preserve
and maintain his power. One day, a quite charismatic prisoner,
a lieutenant general (Robert Redford), begins to serve a 10-year
sentence and after a short while quite an intense power struggle
develops between the warden and this new inmate.

There is one particular scene in the film that struck me. After Robert
Redford arrived at the prison, the warden ordered his subordinates to
give only one basketball to all the prisoners in the yard. Then they
started to watch to see what would unfold. In just a matter of a few
minutes a fight broke out amongst the prisoners about who would play
with this one basketball they had been given.

Observing the scene, the warden is proud of himself and turns to his
assistant and says, “You see how easy it is to manipulate man.”

I watched the film at night and read news coverage about the Ä°stanbul
Municipality’s offer to the Aramean community. They demanded a plot
on which to erect their first church in Ä°stanbul. The municipality
offered them two alternative spaces, and later on it came out that
one of this plots belongs to an Armenian foundation, and the other
one belongs to a Greek foundation.

Somewhere in the film, the warden explains how he sees the inmates. He
describes the situation as a “war,” and in this war all inmates are
“enemies.” When we heard these mottos reflecting his “philosophy,” we
understand where his cruelty comes from. Not only does he wish to have
control over inmates but also wants to destroy them from within. He
gave only one basketball to stir conflict, to create an inner war.

Well, the municipality follows the same line of strategy. They offer
minorities some land that already belongs to other minority groups. In
the vast territory of Ä°stanbul, which is bigger and wider than many
European countries, the municipality could only afford to offer land
to the Arameans from the land of Armenians and Greeks?

This passive aggressive attack is only a new stage in the denial
of the legal and physical existence of non-Muslims in Turkey. In
2003 the Land Planning Law (Ä°mar Kanunu) was changed, and the term
“mosque” was replaced with “the place of worship” to allegedly allow
non-Muslims to set up their own sanctuaries. However, immediately
after this law passed, restrictive regulations followed. In all this
time only a few churches were recognized across the country.

However, this is the first time I have heard of a minority group
being offered land that belongs to yet another minority group. I
hope this insidious action will attract public attention and that
somehow a strong message will be given to “officials” who cooked up
and served this embarrassing policy behind closed doors.

I always come to the same point. When there is no serious, genuine
confrontation with the past, it is not possible to achieve real
change. Once non-Muslims were seen as “enemies” of this country and
as a result, many tragedies occurred in Turkey. Without seeing and
confronting all of the past, we are doomed to repeat past tragedies,
albeit in different forms, like this last passive-aggressive one.

TURKEY: PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH UNACCEPTABLE

Today’s Zaman
July 18 2012
Turkey

The Foreign Ministry has announced that Turkey is not going
to recognize the upcoming presidential elections to be held in
Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory subject to an unresolved dispute between
Armenia and Azerbaijan, deeming them “contrary to international law
and the expectations of the international community.”

“Being undeterred in continuing its efforts for a … normalization
in the region in parallel to the maintenance of initiatives to
resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute on different platforms, Turkey
deplores this action [elections] which means a new sort of violation
of Azerbaijan’s political independence, sovereignty and territorial
integrity,” the ministry declared in a statement released on Wednesday.

Stating that such elections would be a clear violation of UN Security
Council resolutions and Organization of Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) principles, the Foreign Ministry claimed that these are
“just another new example of efforts to unilaterally legitimize the
status quo going against international law” in the disputed region.

The so-called independent government controlling the region is
scheduled to hold presidential elections on Thursday.

The territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan,
but it is under control of a de facto independent but unrecognized
Armenia-backed government. The Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between
Armenia and Azerbaijan turned into a war after the Armenian invasion
in 1991. A cease-fire that persists to this day was declared in 1994.

Supporting its strategic ally Azerbaijan, Turkey closed its borders
with Armenia in an effort to pressure Armenia to respect the borders
of its neighbors.

Although there have been efforts to resolve the dispute through the
Minsk Group initiative, there has so far been almost no progress. The
Minsk Group, an OSCE initiative, was established in 1992 to help
resolve the dispute, but no progress from the group’s efforts has
been reported so far.

OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS TO ISSUE JOINT STATEMENT ON ONCOMING “PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS” IN NK

APA
July 18 2012
Azerbaijan

Strasbourg. Fuad Gulubeyli – APA. French Foreign Ministry’s press
secretariat held online press conference with journalists in the
ministry’s website.

Responding to the question of employee of APA’s European bureau “The
toy regime created by Armenia in occupied territories of the Republic
of Azerbaijan plans to hold the so-called presidential elections in
Azerbaijan’s Nagorno Karabakh region on July 19. These elections will
be held in conditions of foreign occupation and ethnic cleansing of
Azerbaijanis. What is France’s position to these so-called presidential
elections which can create serious obstacles to the peace process?”,
press secretary of the French Foreign Ministry said that the OSCE Minsk
Group co-chairs will issue a joint statement concerning this issue.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry issued statement condemning these
“elections”. Turkish Foreign Ministry also issued a similar statement
condemning the “presidential elections” and assessing it as a stroke
to the peace process.

AZERBAIJANI SERVICEMAN DIES WHILE CARRYING OUT MILITARY OPERATION ON ARMENIAN TERRITORY?

news.am
July 19, 2012 | 22:46

YEREVAN. – Azerbaijani serviceman’s death brought forth lots of
questions within Azerbaijan, while experts are concerned in what
circumstances the serviceman died. Azerbaijani media outlets informed
that the serviceman was injured on Sunday night, while the serviceman’s
family claims he called his brother at 10.00 p.m. and told he is in
the neutral zone and injured.

Searches, which lasted for two days, gave no results. Besides, the
Azerbaijani MOD released no information on the case, Ekho newspaper
reports. An Azerbaijani expert believes that the MOD had to keep
silence as it has no other choice. However, there are lots questions
on why the serviceman appeared in the neutral zone, whether he lost
his way or was carrying out a military command, and why he was not
found in two days.

According to the expert, even if the zone was under fire, it should
have been possible to contact with the Personal Representative of
the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on the conflict, Ambassador Andrzej
Kasprzyk, for the Armenian side to stop shots. As a matter of fact,
the scandal will develop further as the serviceman’s brother has
already said that his brother was in the Armenian and not in the
neutral territory. To note, the fact that the Azerbaijani serviceman
died as claimed by the Azerbaijani media, became one of the centers
of diversion operations by Azerbaijan.

TURKILOGIST: NON-RECOGNITION OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN KARABAKH NOT TO AFFECT NEGOTIATING PROCESS ON KARABAKH SETTLEMENT

arminfo
Thursday, July 19, 18:57

The statements by international organizations about non-recognition of
the presidential election in Karabakh will not affect the negotiating
process on Karabakh conflict settlement, Turkologist, Hakop Chakryan,
told Arminfo correspondent. “The statements by NATO and Foreign
Ministers of Turkey and Azerbaijan mean nothing. Moreover, they are
of a fictive nature. Such statements are made to show that the given
structure is not indifferent to the world global problems”, – he
said. He also added that the statements by Baku and Ankara that the
Karabakh election do not meet international standards, are evidence
of partly recognition of the NKR. Chakryan said that the statement of
the EU could affect the negotiating process, but taking into account
that Catherine Ashton’s statement strictly said that EU is not going
to change the course of the process, no change will take place. He
also said that Foreign Ministry of Armenia immediately reacted at the
statements and did not let strengthening of positions of Azerbaijan
and Turkey at the world arena at the expense of the NKR.

He added that Armenian Foreign Ministry has finally started conducting
preventive policy, predicting and suspending diplomatic steps by
Ankara and Baku.

CAUTIOUS PARTNERS TURKEY, RUSSIA TO TALK TIES, RIVALRIES
By Thomas Grove

Reuters

July 18 2012

MOSCOW, July 17 (Reuters) – A gleaming skyscraper rises from the
ultra-modern financial centre in the heart of Moscow, dwarfing
cathedral cuppolas and bombastic Stalinist highrises, a symbol of
how far Turkish business has come in the former Cold War rival.

The distinctive Turkish-built steel and glass towers of Naberezhnaya,
the second tallest skyscraper in Russia, will serve as a powerful
backdrop when President Vladimir Putin hosts visiting Turkish Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan in the Kremlin on Wednesday to talk business,
energy and regional power politics.

Projects by construction company Enka underscore Erdogan’s signature
mix of business and politics that has expanded NATO-member Turkey’s
presence in the Middle East, Africa and former Soviet Union, where
Russia still jealously guards its interests.

“Turkey today is much more assertive and independent than it was 20
years ago. It wants to be not only a part of NATO and American-led
alliances, but also an independent player in the whole area,” said
Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs.

But Turkey’s regional aspirations in areas where Moscow is sensitive
to its waning influence have complicated an already intricate
relationship in which cooperation in trade and energy politics is
set off by conflicting regional foreign policies.

“Turkey and Russia resemble each other; they have the same claims.

Psychologically, Putin and Erdogan understand each other quite well,
but at the same time all their interests do not coincide. For example,
we see that in the Middle East.”

Almost a year after the death of Russian ally Muammar Gadaffi in
Libya, Moscow and Ankara are at diplomatic loggerheads over the fate
of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Once photographed with Assad and his family at a vacation resort
before anti-government uprisings demanding his departure, Erdogan
has since turned his back on the former ally, calling for his removal
and hosting Syrian rebel fighters on its soil.

Turkey’s ire was raised last month when Syria, recipient of Russian
air defence systems, downed a fighter jet that it claimed was in its
airspace. The incident forced Ankara to call on the other member states
of NATO for consultations over what it called an “act of aggression”.

Putin however, fearing a replay of the Libyan scenario, has continued
sending Assad arms and has protected him from harsher sanctions at
the U.N. Security Council.

Moscow would be loath to see its last stronghold in the Middle East
fall – especially one that hosts a small naval maintenance and repair
facility, Russia’s only naval base outside of the former Soviet Union.

DIVIDED LOYALTIES

Indicating that Erdogan may work to try to influence Putin’s position
over Syria, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters that
new unilateral sanctions against Syria may be passed after Erdogan
returns from Moscow.

“I can say assuredly that new horizons will open up on this subject
(Syria) after our prime minister’s visit to Russia and that new
sanctions against Syria will come onto the agenda,” Arinc told
reporters after a cabinet meeting on Monday.

Russia, for its part, has made clear it has no plans to back sanctions
against Assad. It h as stressed it will not agree to negotiations
that make his departure a precondition.

Russia and Turkey are also aware of their differences in the South
Caucasus region where their respective loyalties to Armenia and
Azerbaijan divide them in the frozen conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh.

War between ethnic Azeris and Armenians erupted in 1991 over the
mostly Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region, which broke away from Muslim
Azerbaijan with the backing of Christian Armenia as the Soviet Union
collapsed two decades ago.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in a gesture of solidarity with
ethnic kin in Azerbaijan during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Russia,
on the other hand, maintains an army base in Armenia.

“In the Caucasus there is always a potential rivalry (between Russia
and Turkey),” said Lukyanov.

DEPENDENCE

Turkish construction firm Enka restored Moscow’s White House in
1994 after then President Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks to fire at
parliamentarians holed up in the building during a rebellion against
his leadership.

Analysts say the construction projects Turkish firms receive are part
of a complex tit-for-tat exchange between the two countries that has
seen Turkey raise the amount of gas it buys from Russia to nearly
half its total imports.

In 2008 Russia overtook Germany as Turkey’s biggest trading partner,
the lion’s share of which has come from natural gas contracts.

Turkey hopes to use its geographic location between oil rich states on
the Caspian and energy hungry Europe to boost its clout as an energy
transit hub and has looked primarily to Russia and Azerbaijan to fill
that role.

Ankara’s dependency on Moscow has led some analysts to speculate
that while the two countries have their differences, Erdogan may be
going to make sure Putin understands the two countries are still by
and large partners.

“It won’t be suprising for Erdogan to knock on the Kremlin walls
trying to persuade Putin (over Syria) and get no response,” wrote
columnist Sami Kohen in Milliyet newspaper.

“However, from the point of view of minimising the effect of the
shadow Syria has cast across their relationship, it will be important
and helpful to continue a sincere dialogue.”

Turkey has approved Russia’s plans to allow the almost $20 billion
South Stream pipeline, which aims to supply southern Europe with
63 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year, to pass under its
territorial waters.

Even with Turkey’s permission to build the pipeline through its waters,
Ankara may still use the line as a chip in negotiations over gaining
enough gas for its own domestic supply. (Additional reporting by
Daren Butler in Istanbul and Orhan Coskun in Ankara; editing by
Ralph Boulton)

AZERBAIJAN WILL NOT PERMIT CIVIL FLIGHTS TO NAGORNO-KARABAKH

Vestnik Kavkaza
July 17 2012
Russia

The recent visit of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group to
Nagorno-Karabakh has provoked new talks on opening an airport in the
region. Azerbaijan says that Armenia’s plans to open a civil flight
service in Nagorno-Karabakh violate international law. Azerbaijan
cannot control a region occupied by Armenia, so it cannot guarantee
the security of flights, spokesman of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry
Elman Abdullayev said, Interfax Azerbaijan reports.

The director of Azerbaijani Civil Aviation, Arif Mamedov, said that
flights through Azerbaijan need Baku’s permission. The self-proclaimed
authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh cannot guarantee security of flights.

Mamedov added that equipment for the airport was provided by a French
company that was unaware of Armenia’s plans to use it at the airport
in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Mamedov confirmed that a letter was filed for the ICAO president
to meet the French company’s officials and prevent such incidents
next time.

According to Mamedov, the ICAO received 7 warning messages
from Azerbaijan about illegal construction of the airport in
Nagorno-Karabakh.

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, USA, France) visited
Nagorno-Karabakh on July 13. They warned that flights cannot be used
to affect the status of the disputed region. The co-chairs welcomed
assurances that Armenia and Azerbaijan would not use force.

MOSCOW MURDER MYSTERY FOCUSES ON FORMER GTA MOBSTER

Published on Tuesday July 17, 2012

MIKE KELLY/TORONTO STAR Alex Yaari, centre, is escorted in handcuffs
after arriving at Pearson International Airport in October 1992,
charged with murder and robbery in the slaying of a local jeweller.

He remains under suspicion in the 1989 death of a Paris art dealer
in Moscow.

Peter Edwards Staff Reporter

The last time he was seen alive, Parisian art dealer Garabed (Garig)
Basmadjian, was stepping from a Moscow hotel near the Kremlin into
a waiting car on July 29, 1989.

Not long after that, Moscow police discovered his blood-spattered
Mercedes and, shortly afterwards, they were hearing stories of how
his body had been chopped into bits and spread about a mountainous
area outside the city.

A prime suspect in his murder has always been former GTA boxing coach
Alex Yaari (a.k.a. Alexander Sergeevich Podlesnyi), a convicted killer
considered by Canadian police to be an early member of the Russian
Mafia – or Mafiye – in North America.

“I believe that he was deeply connected with Russian organized crime
in the Toronto area, New York City and Israel,” former Toronto Police
deputy chief Steve Reesor says.

Authorities in Moscow and France also have suspicions about Yaari,
who is now free on bail of 10,000 euros in France as authorities
probe the Basmadjian disappearance.

The working theory is that Basmadjian was carrying a large sum of
money when he was lured from the Rossiya hotel, in the belief he was
en route to a major art deal.

Basmadjian’s widow is being helped by the Association Edouard Kalifat
in Paris, a humanitarian group that traces the disappearance of people
from the former Soviet Union.

Association spokesperson Denis Sellem notes that a Parisan judge
travelled to Canada several years ago in an unsuccessful attempt to
question Yaari in his prison cell.

Patrick Ramel, an examining magistrate from Paris, successfully argued
with Canadian authorities that Yaari should be extradited to France
for the Basmadjian disappearance because, under French law, France
has jurisdiction for the case because the victim was a French citizen.

It’s not clear, partly because of the secrecy of judicial
investigations in France, why Yaari has still not been formally
charged.

While the art dealer’s murder is a cold case, it remains sensitive
in Europe, as Armenian-born Basmadjian is beloved for his efforts to
raise money for relief for the Armenian earthquake of 1988.

Yaari’s Parisian lawyer, Cesar Ghrenassia, notes that French
authorities made no mention of charging Yaari with anything connected
to Mafiye membership or activity.

“It means to me that nobody gave credit to these allegations,”
Ghrenassia says.

Yaari was born on Aug. 14, 1959 in Magadan, Russia, a city in the
old Siberian gulag. The city has a grim history; local tour guides
point out that the foundation of nearby Kolyma Highway contains the
bones of inmates who built it.

Yaari was convicted at 17 for rape and theft and sentenced to 10 years.

He was on probation when he was re-arrested at age 23 and given 3 ½
years in a forced-labour camp for “ruffianly behaviour” for taking
part in a drunken barroom brawl.

Two years after his second release, he was in Moscow, the mecca for
the new Russian Mafiye as the former Soviet Union disintegrated.

“He’s probably a product of where he came from,” Reesor says.

Yaari’s immigration papers listed him as a boxing coach in Russia
and a sailor in Israel when he arrived in the GTA in January 1991 on
a visitor’s permit.

It was commonplace for North American Russian mobsters to pass through
Israel en route to Canada. They’d claim to be Jewish, then change
their names to make it tougher to trace their backgrounds.

“That was a route that a lot of Russian organized-crime members took
to get into Canada,” Reesor says.

Within weeks of his arrival in the GTA, he was married to a woman he
barely knew.

A year later, Yaari was also a killer and multi-million-dollar
jewel thief.

Yaari was convicted of strangling Michael Kleinberg, 35, who was
slain during the robbery of his family’s jewellery store at Bathurst
St. and Lawrence Ave. W. in North York on July 9, 1991.

Kleinberg, a father of three, was bound and gagged with ropes that
choked him to death. Yaari’s defence was that the strangulation was
unintentional.

Some $3.5 million worth of rings were taken. Police noted the robbery
was carried out with military precision by two masked robbers who
didn’t speak a word as they filled a red hockey bag with loot.

Yaari was arrested by Toronto police after Interpol circulated
photographs of rings Vienna detectives seized when Yaari was arrested
there for assaulting a friend.

The rings were stamped with a distinctive Kleinberg logo.

In Austria, Reesor and his partner, Det. Sgt. Brody Smollett, met a
Moscow police colonel and a KGB major who were there to arrest Yaari.

The colonel’s job was to charge Yaari for the Basmadjian murder,
while the KGB major’s job was to make sure the colonel didn’t defect.

Austrian authorities preferred the stable Canadian legal system to
the Russian one, even though both cases were relatively fresh.

Solidly built, Yaari looks the part of a former boxer, standing a
little under 6 feet. He’s reportedly capable of considerable charm,
but didn’t say much to the Toronto cops in Vienna.

He certainly didn’t seem upset that the Austrians chose to send him
to Toronto rather than back to the former Soviet Union.

“At that time, it’s quite possible if they sent him to Siberia he
would be facing a firing squad,” Reesor says.

He was sentenced in 1994 to 16 years in prison for manslaughter and
robbery, making him one of the few Russian mobsters to be convicted
of serious criminal charges in the GTA.

Police described the case as the dawn of a new era in local organized
crime, with the arrival of a wave of sophisticated, deadly criminals
from the former Soviet Union.

Reesor says the case certainly had its novel elements.

“It was a little bit unusual for someone who was in Russian organized
crime to be caught doing a straight-up robbery like that,” Reesor says.

Yaari fought, through lawyers, for early release from Canadian prison
but was denied by the parole board, federal court and the Ontario
Court of Appeal. The appeal court wrote: “As for your involvement in
an organized crime group in Toronto with ties to the Russian Mafia,
we find that there was sufficient relevant and reliable information
to connect you to such a group.”

While he was an inmate at Warkworth medium security penitentiary in
Campbellford, Ont., Yaari managed to copyright at least nine songs
and a piece of literature.

One of the works is an opera, “On Devotion and Love,” and another is a
Russian-language musical, “Ballad of Soldiers.” Other musical pieces
include “Over Two Hours of Travel Into Opera of Devotion and Love,”
“Over Two Hours With a Vagabond,” and “Forever, On Centuries.”

There’s also a musical and a piece of literature, each titled
“Vagabond.”

There is no evidence any of the works was ever published or recorded.

In April 2010, he was extradited to France, where he had no roots.

There, he was locked up in La Sante Prison, a maximum-security Paris
facility built in the 1860s and dubbed “France’s most feared jail”
in the press. Its inmates have included international terrorist Ilich
Ramírez Sanchez (a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal).

Yaari was eventually freed in May, on condition that he remain in
France until he faces trial or the charges are dropped.

Yaari and his Paris lawyer, Ghrenassia, declined to comment on
specifics of the case as the investigation continues.

“As you may know, the judicial investigations in France are deemed
to be secret,” Ghrenassia said in an email. “In that respect, M.

Yaari and I intend to comply with these obligations.”