Former Head of Abovyan Community Illegally Alienates Park Area

The Kotayk Regional Governor has addressed a letter to the Attorney General regarding the illegal alienation of a park area located on Rosia Street in Abovyan city by the former head of the Abovyan community, using criminal mechanisms. Several citizens have also submitted complaints about this issue. This was reported by the Attorney General's office.

By the instruction of the Attorney General, the letter from the regional governor and the complaints have been forwarded to the Main Department of Criminal Police of the Republic of Armenia for the preparation of materials and resolution of the case in accordance with legal procedures.

Based on the materials prepared by the Main Department of the Police of Armenia, factual information has been obtained showing that the former head of the Abovyan community in Kotayk Province, abusing his official position and violating the requirements of legislation and relevant government decisions, approved the alienation of a 782.3 square meter plot of land located at ¼ Rosia Street in Abovyan, which belongs to the municipality for the construction of residential buildings and service facilities, as an area of public functional significance on September 16, 2010, even though this area is part of a green zone designated as a park by the general plan of Abovyan city approved by the Armenian government in 2006.

Subsequently, the presented layout was submitted to the territorial subdivision of the State Committee of Real Estate Cadastre of Armenia in Abovyan, where the employees failed to conduct additional checks to ascertain the actual purpose of the plot indicated in the presented plan. The cadastral code for the specified address was changed to a different code, and on September 28, 2010, with the inclusion of obviously false information in official documents, a certificate of registration of real estate property rights was issued in the name of the Abovyan community, representing the plot as land of public construction significance.

On March 25, 2011, the former head of the Abovyan community, acting as the head of the authorized body organizing the auction and its organizer, abused his official position by delegating the organization of the auction process to his assistant, who then organized and held a fraudulent auction. This means that while nominally complying with the requirements of Articles 68 and 69 of the Land Code, it was falsely presented that multiple persons submitted bids and participated in the auction. Fake official documents were created regarding this, while in reality, only one interested party participated, and without a second person, the auction took place, during which the signature of the second participant was also forged in the official documents.

As a result of the aforementioned actions, the community has been deprived of managing the green zone park and the opportunity to conduct the auction of municipal property with the involvement of other interested parties, thus alienating it at its real value. The park area, with a cadastral value of 3,539,125 AMD, was alienated for 1,858,100 AMD, resulting in serious consequences for the community.

Considering that the prepared materials indicate characteristics of crimes involving the abuse of official authority resulting in serious consequences, facilitating this, committing official forgery, and serious consequences arising from official negligence, a criminal case has been initiated under part 2 of Article 308, part 2 of Article 38-308, Article 314, part 2 of Article 38-314, and part 2 of Article 315 of the Criminal Code of Armenia at the Main Department of the Police.

The criminal case has been sent to the Investigative Committee of Armenia for preliminary investigation.

Notice: The suspect or accused in the alleged crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court's legally binding judgment in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia.