Former Dilijan Mayor Illegally Alienated Land Plots and Committed Official Forgery

The preliminary investigation conducted by the Anti-Corruption Committee of Armenia has established that A. S., while holding the position of the mayor of the Dilijan community in the Tavush region, committed official forgery with the assistance of others and exceeded his official authority by organizing and implementing the alienation of land plots included in the list of restrictions set by law through auction and direct sale to a citizen. This was reported by the Anti-Corruption Committee.

It was specifically noted that during the investigation, it was revealed that A. S., by entering deliberately false information in an official document for personal motives, committed official forgery. In particular, he included three land plots with a total area of 0.1063 hectares designated for forest purposes into the balance of the Dilijan community fund from 2010 to 2012, describing them as land for other purposes.

Simultaneously, A. S., with the assistance of the staff of the urban planning and land use department of the Dilijan municipal administration, drafted false master plans for the aforementioned land plots, where the targeted purpose of these forest-designated plots was again described as land for residential use, and their functional use as other land.

The decisions to state the rights of the Dilijan community to the land plots and the subsequently issued false master plans were presented by A. S. to the State Committee on Real Estate Cadastre of Armenia, which led to the registration of the Dilijan community's ownership rights to the land plots and the issuance of certificates of ownership. Subsequently, two of the mentioned land plots were presented for auction, where A. H. was recognized as the winner with the highest bids of 1,113,000 and 1,596,000 AMD. The third plot, with an area of 160.0 square meters, was sold directly for 198,720 AMD as an expansion to the same individual.

As a result, the three plots were consolidated as a single property unit, with ownership rights registered in the name of A. H.

The criminal proceedings have also established that A. S., being aware of unauthorized construction carried out by a close acquaintance on another parcel of land with an area of 0.3354 hectares located at a different address in Dilijan, acted out of personal interest by issuing an official document known as an architectural planning assignment, in which he entered obviously false information characterizing the existing condition of the parcel as undeveloped. A. S. then signed a donation agreement with the developer, legally registering his ownership rights to the property.

A. S. has been charged under Article 441, part 2, point 5, and Article 445, part 1 of the Criminal Code of Armenia, regarding two episodes of the described criminal acts. The preliminary investigation has been completed, and the materials of the case have been submitted to the supervising prosecutor with a request to approve it and forward it to the court. It should be noted that earlier it was reported that a public criminal prosecution was initiated against the former mayor of Dilijan.