According to the results received from the RA State Control Service, the RA Prosecutor General instructed the Prosecutors offices of the regions to undertake large examinations in the field of state interest protection. Circumstances of leasing the state and community-owned lands, and then providing them to the telecommunication operators through sub-lease agreements, placing telecommunication stations and allowing their operation were found in 8 regions in that scope.
For this purpose, the Department of State Interests Protection of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Armenia requested relevant documents and partially received them from several competent state entities.
In the framework of this process, the Prosecutor's offices have instructed the investigative bodies to prepare materials according to criminal procedure regarding cases with similar data on the activities of community authorities.
In the result, in the procedure of the leasing state property and community owned property and subleasing those properties by telecommunication operators in 8 regions (2 in Kotayk, 2 in Shirak, 3 in Syuniq, 3 in Tavush, 3 in Gegharkunik, 1 in Aragatsotn, 3 in Ararat, 3 in Lori), as of May 6, on cases of schematic abuses committed, 19 criminal cases are being investigated by the RA preliminary investigative bodies under Article 308, Part 2 (two cases under Article 315.2) of the RA Criminal Code.
According to the materials of the criminal cases, state or community-owned agricultural lands have been leased by community heads, sometimes through formal, pre-determined tenders in significantly low rents with actual symbolic fees to community heads, their family members, relatives or subordinates since 2004. Then the tenants leased a small plot of the land to operator companies for multiple, up to 200-300 times higher rental fees. As a result, land tenants have benefited greatly from the use of community-owned land in the form of rents, depriving communities of receiving benefits from those financial sources.
6 acting or former heads of six communities have been arrested in 6 criminal cases, and 3 have signed not to leave as a preventive means. Taking into account that some of the suspects fully and partially compensated the damage caused to the communities, expressing readiness to restore the rest of the damage during the preliminary investigation, all of them were released from arrest.
As of May 6, 7 people have been charged for the mentioned criminal cases under Article 308, Part 2 of the RA Criminal Code, and 1 person under Article 308, Part 2, Article 308, Part 1, Article 315.2 of the RA Criminal Code, 2 persons under Article 38-308, Part 2 of the RA Criminal Code.
The total damage caused to the communities in the mentioned cases amounted to 153.000.000 AMD, out of which 41.587.000 AMD has already been recovered. Measures are being undertaken for recovering the rest of the damage.
Due to the need to restore the violated rights of the communities and transfer the financial means to the community budget, the lease agreements were terminated in 9 communities on the immediate initiative of the Prosecutor's offices of the regions, and in some cases new agreements were concluded between the communities and companies. Measures are being undertaken in other cases to terminate the illegal contracts, thus the prosecutors of the regions have submitted petitions to the marzpets.
Preliminary investigations of these cases are underway, and many other cases are being prepared according to criminal procedure. Information on their results will be provided regularly.
