Armenian Reporter Insists Property Destruction Charge Against Him ‘Frivolous’

Mher Ghalechyan, a reporter with the “Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” newspaper, has been charged with intentionally breaking his neighbor’s cell phone. Ghalechyan, however, insists that the charge against him “is false and frivolous.”

“Why did I break the phone? Well, the indictment says my neighbor] was filming the incident [between us], and I, a reporter of 15 years, knocked the phone out of his hands and break it to prevent him from filming,” Ghalechyan says in a video interview with the Yerevan-based Helsinki Association for Human Rights, laughing.

The reporter does not deny that he did indeed brawl with his neighbor Vardan Hovnikyan on July 15, 2015; Ghalechyan however says this was not their first argument. The problems between the neighbors first arose when Hovnikyan, according to Ghalechyan, illegally purchased the land lot in front of his house and started construction on it, hindering access to Ghalechyan’s house.

According to case materials, on July 15, Hovnikyan kicked the door of Ghalechyan’s house; the door hit Ghalechyan’s wife, Gayane Khachatryan, causing her minor head injuries. Hovnikyan has since been charged with deliberately causing slight physical injuries to the woman.

Ghalechyan is confident that the property destruction charge has been brought against him to make the Ghalechyans withdraw their complaint against Hovnikyan; “They want to pressure me into retracting my complaint so that they do the same.”

The reporter says his neighbor has links in the prosecutor’s office, which have made it possible for him to get away with committing more serious violent acts in the past. According to Ghalechyan, Hovnikyan has destroyed his property. And hit Gayane Khachatryan during a previous argument; however, the criminal case over the incident “has been hushed up.”

“The only evidence against me is the broken phone. There are video and audio recordings [of the incident], there are witnesses. We have motioning to call these witnesses to testify, but all the motions have been denied,” Ghalechyan complains, adding that he hopes Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun district court judge Armen Khachatryan will issue a fair verdict.