Mayor of Meghri's Lawyer Files Motion to Clarify the Nature of the Charges

The charges brought against the head of the Meghri community, Mikhtar Zakaryan, are considered absurd by his lawyer, Yerem Sargsyan. The lawyer has shared certain details about the charges on his Facebook page.

“The prosecutor's office stated in the wording of the charges that before Mikhtar Zakaryan was elected as the head of the community, a resident of Agarak city, having won a competition held on February 16, 2007, acquired the right to lease a 0.02 ha area of agricultural land belonging to the community for a period of 25 years at an annual rent of 18,000 AMD. This land was then sublet to a telecommunications operator company based on the decision of the community's then-leader and the concluded contract, for an annual rent of 600,000 AMD. The company illegally constructed a mobile communication station on the land without changing its intended use.

As you can see, until this moment, Mikhtar Zakaryan has no connection or relevance to the events that have occurred since he was not the head of the community at that time. However, continuing with the charges, the prosecutor's office specified that starting from November 13, 2008, when Mikhtar Zakaryan became the new leader of the Agarak community, he learned that this plot was being used improperly and that an illegal mobile communication station was constructed on it. Yet, he failed to exercise his authority to halt or eliminate this illegal land use. Instead of unilaterally terminating the lease agreement with the citizen, on behalf of the community, he signed an agreement with the citizen, setting the rent for the land leased by him at 300,000 AMD instead of the previous 18,000 AMD, which has been paid to the community budget for several years.

From the stated wording, it is clear that due to Mikhtar Zakaryan's actions, the community budget has been paid 300,000 AMD every year instead of 18,000 AMD. However, based on all this, the prosecutor's office concluded that between November 13, 2008, and January 2021, the community budget was paid 3,657,000 AMD instead of 7,350,000 AMD, which has caused severe consequences, specifically, the community budget was not paid 3,692,000 AMD.

This means that according to the prosecutor's logic, if Mikhtar Zakaryan had carried out the actions mentioned in the charges, namely, unilaterally terminating the lease agreement with the citizen and halting and eliminating illegal land use, then during that period, the community budget would have paid more money, including the amount considered heavy damage of 3,692,000 AMD. It is evident that even someone without legal education can understand this simple logic: if Mikhtar Zakaryan had carried out the actions pointed out by the prosecutor's office—terminating that lease agreement and eliminating the illegal land use—not only would the budget not have been forced to pay that heavy damage of 3,692,000 AMD, but the 3,657,000 AMD already paid due to that lease would not have been paid either. Thus, it turns out that due to the failure to perform those alleged authorities, Mikhtar Zakaryan did not cause harm to the community budget but rather provided a benefit of 3,657,000 AMD.

If there is no harm caused, there is also no crime as defined by part 2 of Article 308 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia. Frankly, I have read the wording of these charges several times because it was hard to believe that the prosecutor's office could formulate such a charge or allow its existence, after which a statement was rapidly published on the prosecutor's official website. However, it is a fact that this absurd charge exists, and the reasons for it will eventually be revealed.

Moreover, to explain this reasoning, I submitted a motion to the investigator and the prosecutor, requesting a clarification of the essence of the charges and how it is possible that the community budget would be paid more money if the contract were terminated when, in fact, no money would be paid in the case of its termination at all. I am trying to convince myself that the higher prosecutors are not fully aware of this matter and will eliminate this injustice as soon as they find out.