Epress.am News from Armenia
The Court of First Instance of Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun Administrative Districts of Yerevan today dismissed agronomist Samvel Harutyunyan's complaint against the police and the prosecution. A resident of the rural community of Gargar in Lori marz (province), Harutyunyan was challenging inaction on the part of these two state institutions.
Earlier, Harutyunyan had contacted law enforcement authorities, providing them with the ArmRosGazprom (renamed to Gazprom Armenia in January 2014) contract and the Ministry of Justice's expert state non-commercial organization report, but no criminal case for falsifying an official document was filed.
"Presenting a forged document, ArmRosGazprom appealed the lower court's ruling against it and basically won. Then we turned to the Court of Cassation, but they didn't even begin proceedings; meanwhile, there was the expert's report that the document was forged," Harutyunyan informed Epress.am.
The entrepreneur won the case against ArmRosGazprom in the lower court. The agronomist claims that he suffered losses due to an illegal termination of his gas supply. The court decided to confiscate 45 million AMD (about $111 thousand USD) from the gas company. According to Harutyunyan, later, ArmRosGazprom with a fake contract tried to prove that he, Harutyunyan, refused to receive gas from April to October 2008.
"In the first instance, ArmRosGazprom provided no objection to my copy of the contract. It said nothing about the allegations that the contract was later changed over the phone, which the police now claims. They're now saying, we called and you said you don't want gas during those months, and we changed it. How can an already signed and sealed contract be changed over the phone? In such cases, a new contract is signed. This absurd argument was accepted by the police and the prosecution," he says.
The entrepreneur is now preparing to appeal in the Court of Appeals. Harutyunyan also contacted the Armenian Human Rights Defender's Office; drafted a letter to bring to the president's residence; and he is prepared to fight for compensation for damages, up until the European Court of Human Rights, if necessary.
Photo credit: Photolure