Armenian air carrier Armavia has filed a lawsuit against local daily Chorrord Inqnishkhanutyun (“Fourth Self-Authority”) for publishing news that it says harmed its business reputation. The airline company is asking for 2 million drams ($5,300 USD) in damages.<\/p>\n
The newspaper in its issue today notes that Armavia is suing the paper for an article titled “Armavia is supplying weapons to Libya’; however, the headline was, in fact, “Is Armavia supplying weapons to Libya?” thereby placing into doubt the actual fact of the matter.<\/p>\n
Chorrord Inqnishkhanutyun, or “ChI” as it’s commonly known, also points out that the news was reprinted from Epress.am, which then refuted the news<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> the following day. This retraction was also reprinted by ChI.<\/p>\n “Every sentence in the article published in our paper has a specific source, but Armavia, for some unknown reason, is not suing any of them. Our sole ‘initiative’ was to publish a photo of one of Armavia’s planes [alongside the article]. So Armavia’s business reputation was tainted by a photo of one of its own planes?” asks the daily.<\/p>\n Recall, an article previously published by Epress.am noted that Commander of the National Army and Chief of General Staff of Moldova\u2019s Armed Forces, Brigadier General Iurie Dominic said<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> that a IL-76 aircraft that arrived in Moldova from Libya, with the aim of picking up a regular shipment of arms (and it is presumed will go back), belongs to \u201can Armenian civil air carrier.\u201d [Note, the statement was originally published<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/strong> by the Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) radio station as well as Interfax news agency.]\n Epress.am then sought comment from Armenian Department of Civil Aviation press secretary Nelly Cherchinyan, who said that \u201conly [Armenian national air carrier] Armavia can comment on this matter.\u201d\u00a0 However, Armavia\u2019s press office did not respond to calls at the time.<\/p>\n Later, Armavia press secretary Nana Avetisova informed Epress.am<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/strong> that Armavia has never had a IL-76 aircraft and only transports passengers and not cargo.<\/p>\n