Land in Jrarashen Community Illegally Sold to Mayor's Son and Leased

It has already been reported that based on materials prepared under the assignment of the Prosecutor's Office of Lori Province, a criminal case has been initiated regarding abuses in the process of leasing state and community-owned real estate and sub-letting by lessees. Evidence obtained during the preliminary investigation of the criminal case, which was examined by the Lori Regional Investigative Department of the RA Investigative Committee, led to charges being brought against the head of the Jrarashen community in Lori province.

According to the Public Relations Department of the RA Prosecutor's Office, on August 12, 2021, the initial charges against V. U. were changed and a new accusation was laid against him under Part 2 of Article 308 of the RA Criminal Code. This was for his failure, despite being officially informed of the intention of a telecommunications operator to install and operate a communication tower within the community's property, to organize a public auction without announcing the sale of the land, thereby ensuring additional income for his family from the use of community property for personal gain. He also violated the requirements of point 231 of the RA Government decision dated April 12, 2001, by not placing any announcement for the public auction while pretending that the announcement was published in the “Republic of Armenia” newspaper.

As a result, the community leader conducted a formal auction for the sale of the community property, declaring his son the winner. On October 2, 2006, the community's property consisted of a 0.1 ha land plot, sold at auction for 76,590 AMD to his son. A sales contract was signed with him on October 7 of the same year, transferring the ownership of the land to his son. Subsequently, the son leased the same land plot to a mobile operator at a monthly rent of 100,000 AMD and, by June 30, 2021, received a total of 17,259,996 AMD in rent, depriving the community of the opportunity to earn this amount.

Due to similar self-serving motives, V. U. did not take any measures to change the intended use of that land or to stop non-compliance with land use legislation. In order to restore the damage caused to the community by the criminal case, the investigating authority decided to impose a lien on five land plots and sent letters to the organizations that signed lease agreements for the placement of communication towers on the aforementioned land plots, to suspend rent payments until the final resolution of the criminal case.

The preliminary investigation of the criminal case has concluded. On August 18, 2021, a decision was made by the prosecutor to confirm the indictment, and it was sent to the Lori regional court of first instance for substantive examination.