Why Deputy Speaker’s Husband Is Not Charged
Roza Hovhannisyan, Reporter
Law – 27 September 2014, 17:33
Davit Beglaryan, the husband of the deputy speaker of the National
Assembly Hermine Naghdalyan, has openly stated in his testimony that
he has asked money from the real owners of the apartments in the
building at 14/3 Gevorg Cha’ush, Yerevan built by Norashen 2007
cooperative to return their apartments. He states that he has returned
two apartments for 10,000 dollars each and returned one of the
apartments for 20,000 dollars and signed a sales agreement with them.
Beglaryan also noted that he refused to return the apartment to Vahe
Mayilyan for 5000 dollars and demanded 10,000 dollars. He dismissed
the testimonies by the heads of Norashen 2007 cooperative that he had
lent them money on interest and accepted the apartments as collateral.
“Armen and Lyova sold me the apartments for 260 USD per square meter.
We have simply agreed with them that later they will be able to buy
back the apartments paying an additional 20-25%,” he said.
Interestingly, for the section of this case concerning Davit
Beglaryan, V. Janazyan, investigator of cases of the special
importance of the Special Investigative Service, has found out the
following: “According to the agreement reached with the president of
Norashen 2007 consumer cooperative Armen Tadevosyan and his partner
Lusabek Manvelyan, in November 2009 Davit Beglaryan provided them
300,000 USD at a monthly interest of 5% which exceeds the monthly
nominal interest set by the RA Central Bank. As a guarantee of
repayment of the money, he in person and relatives and friends signed
fictive contracts with Armen Tadevosyan for 14 apartments at 14/3
Gevorg Cha’ush.”
Nevertheless, the investigator did not prosecute Davit Beglaryan due
to lack of corpus delicti in his act.
Davit Mayilyan’s apartment is now registered in the name of Davit
Beglaryan’s driver. Vahe Mayilyan’s advocate Haik Alumyan told
Lragir.am that Davit Beglaryan’s testimony is not a straightforward
testimony.
“There is a lot of information in the criminal case that show it was a
pawn. There was a fictive sales agreement but the investigation found
out that in reality it was a pawn. Instead of collateral there was a
sale. According to the document, the cooperative does not have the
apartment that it has to hand over to Vahe Mayilyan,” Alumyan said.
He also said that the criminal case contains information on lending
money on interest. According to the advocate, it is allowed by law to
lend money on interest unless the interest does not exceed the rate
established by the Central Bank twice. In this case, however,
according to him, there is information in the criminal case that the
rate twice exceeded the rate established by the Central Bank.
“But now there is nothing the court can do, the investigative body
should have done what was necessary – bring charges. Since the
investigative body has not brought such charges, we have applied to
court with a civil claim to apply the collateral agreement instead of
the sales agreement, in other words, the agreement which the sides
meant. We demand application of the rules of the real transaction. We
think the real transaction was collateral, not sales. In other words,
the apartment must be considered the property of Norashen 2007 hence
it belongs to the person to whom it was to be handed over under the
agreement,” Haik Alumyan said, adding that there is sufficient ground
to claim the apartment from Davit Beglaryan.
Note that Armen Tedovosyan and Lusabek Manvelyan were charged under
Article 178 Para 3.1. Armen Tadevosyan stated in his testimony that
the majority of those who have certificates of ownership of apartments
are not the real owners of the apartments but the people who lent him
money on interest or their relatives.
The article was financed by Fund for Investigative Journalism.