Regional Governor Sues Newspaper for Libel: Witness was ‘Pressured,’ Says Journalist

The lawsuit brought forth by Gegharkunik regional governor (marzpet) Nver Poghosyan against local daily Joghovurd was examined in Gegharkunik District Court of First Instance on Thursday. Recall, the public official is suing the paper for an article published on Oct. 7 in which the newspaper alleges the marzpet accepted a bribe of $3,000 USD.

The author of the piece, Sona Grigoryan, described to Epress.am the incidents that led up to lawsuit:

On Oct. 6, Grigoryan paid a visit to the Ttujur village school, to cover the review process for selecting a history teacher for the school. There were two candidates for the position: Anna Torosyan and Artur Mkhitaryan; however, the journalist was informed that the interviews were moved to the following day. Grigoryan says she asked Anna Torosyan a few questions, inquiring as to what expectations the latter has from the review process.

“Anna Torosyan said she has no expectations because the other candidate, Artur Mkhitaryan, paid a bribe of $3,000 to the marzpet for him to be selected as the history teacher. She said Mkhitaryan passed on this bribe to the marzpet through his driver. We publish this story the following day, on Oct. 7, and on the same day in the evening we find out that the prosecutor’s office sends a notice to the police and Anna Torosyan is called in for questioning. During that time I call Anna to find out how she is, but she turned off her phone before going into the police station. And only in the morning am I able to speak with her: she tells me she wants to kill herself, she wants to apologize to the marzpet. We also find out that that same day the marzpet is taking our paper to court,” said Grigoryan.

During the Nov. 17 court session, Anna Torosyan said that she didn’t recall saying such thing, noting that she was in a distressed mental state that day and she heard about the bribe from rumors circulating in the village. According to Grigoryan (the journalist), Torosyan testified in court that she gave an interview to the paper but noted that she doesn’t remember saying anything about a bribe.

The journalist asserts that Anna Torosyan was pressured and the latter gave contradictory testimonies in court.

Grigoryan added that the marzpet’s three attorneys were only pointing to one thing during the court session — that the paper had no right to write that the marzpet had accepted a bribe.

The next court date has been scheduled for Dec. 5 at 3 pm.