“Mrs. Arpi, why have you invited me here?”1in.am
Though the investigation of the case against the human rights defender Marina Poghosyan came to the final stage, and the prosecutor was to make his accusatory speech, at the last hearing the prosecution unexpectedly summoned a new witness for interrogation. And though Marina Poghosyan’s lawyer had objected to the motion, the court satisfied the motion, and soon the witness was already in the court. The word is about Narine Baghdasaryan who lives in the building where the apartment being the subject matter is located and is the owner of the beauty salon also located in the same building.
“Mrs. Arpi, why have you invited me here today”, Narine Baghdasaryan asked the injured party, and in response to which Meras said that she had not invite her. Although the accusing party was interested in bringing Narine Baghdasaryan to court, yet the witness confirmed the testimonies given by the defendant Marina Poghosyan and denied the statement of the accusing party, Arpi Meras, saying as if she called the latter two years ago and asked her not to made her involved in the matter because she was afraid of Marina.
Narine Baghdasaryan confirmed that she had called Meras, but insisted that she had not told her that she was afraid of Marina Poghosyan. “I do not deny that I told you not to get me involved in the matter, as I have no obligation towards Mrs. Arpi. And it was natural that I should have complained. But what should I have feared from Marina? I just said that I did not want anything to interfere; I did not say I was afraid of Marina”, the witness asserted.
Narine Baghdasaryan informed that during the preliminary investigation, the investigator called her to invite her to the Investigation Office, where she learnt that Arpi Meras had submitted a report against Marina Poghosyan, which spoke on the sale of her property owned by her. Narine Baghdasaryan informed the court that sometimes they gave her the utility bills of the spoken apartment in order she could then pass them to Marina Poghosyan and, in general, if there was any problem concerning the apartment, she always turned to Poghosyan as she settled all the issues.
It should be noted that the witness did not show readiness to answer questions and often said that the case did not concern her. She also found it difficult to recall certain episodes by saying that she was not obliged to keep in mind events which were not important for her. At the stage of the preliminary investigation Narine Baghdasaryan had given explanations, which contradicted those given to the court. The judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan read the explanations after which Narine Baghdasaryan announced that she simply did not recall the events well, so the testimonies given in the court differed from the information provided during the investigation.
Narina Baghdasaryan had notified in her explanation that she learnt from the poster hanging over the open air balcony of the house that the apartment in question was being sold. And later she found an announcement on one of the webpages. Let us remind that Marina Poghosyan also stated in her testimony that she had hung a large poster on the sale outside the balcony of the apartment in the center of the city, and in 2013 she posted advertisements on sale on some websites of real estate agencies. “Can there be any intelligent person in the world to post a statement on the Internet on the crime which he/she is going to commit”, Marina Poghosyan raised a rhetorical question.
Let us remind that according to the charge, Marina Poghosyan sold the apartment which was de jure ownership of Arpi Meras without her knowledge and assignment and pouched the money from sale. Poghosyan submitted to the preliminary body three notarized letters of attorney by which Arpi Meras had authorized her to sell her apartment. Arpi Meras stated in the court that the powers of attorney were given for its repair and regulations of other problems. But Poghosyan justified by documents that when the first power of attorney was issued, the reconstruction of the apartment had already been completed.
However, the interrogation of the witness did not anyhow help in understanding how well the charge against Poghosyan was justified. Then perhaps Narine Baghdasaryan did not question in vain why she had been invited to court. The case will continue on September 23, at 15:30.
P.S. In one of our articles, we raised the issue of the suspicion on the signatures put in the name of Arpi Meras in the case materials. The defense party pointed out some documents the signatures found in which were obviously inconsistent. The judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan rejected the motion on appointing a forensic handwriting examination. At the last court session, Arpi Meras stated that the different signatures were her own, and the difference was because one of them was in Armenian and the other was in English. Meras brought also her passport to the court to show her signature in it. Marina Poghosyan refused to examine the signature in her passport stating that she was not an expert to check with the naked eye the correspondence of the signatures, and she reminded the court that their motion on the forensic handwriting examination had already been refused. Arpi Meras made other statements too, which we will refer to in our upcoming articles.
Author: Arman Gharibyan
