Did anyone else sign instead of Meras? (part 2) 1in.am
In part 1 of the series of Articles we referred to the testimonies and documents of Marina Poghosyan, Director of “Veles” non-governmental organisation, by which she proves that testimonies given against her are false. In this publication we shall refer to other documents – particularly the signatures and testimonies of Arpi Meras who was found as a victim – available in the criminal case instituted against the human rights defender.
During the previous court sitting Marina Poghosyan’s advocate Liparit Simonyan filed a motion to the court to assign a handwriting expert examination, to find out who had signed instead of Arpi Meras, as when looking at the signatures put on the documents available in the case even with the naked eye one can see that they differ from each other (see the photo).
It is important to mention, that yet on 29 July 2015, when Marina Poghosyan was called to the Investigation Department to give explanations and saw the signature put under her report, just in her first explanation she mentioned that the signature did not belong to her long-time friend Arpi Meras. “I did not believe that Arpi could give a report against me, and after seeing the signature I got more convinced that the text was not written by her,”: said the human rights defender during the conversation with “1in.am”.
Meras’s representative Hrant Ananyan and prosecuting prosecutor Nelli Arshafyan rejected the motion. Advocate Hrant Ananyan noted, that there could not be a theoretical motivation for forging a signature, as Arpi Meras had authorised him to sign documents. The advocate announced that he did not make use of the given authorization and did not sign anything instead of Meras, and where the party being defended suspects that a signature was forged, may submit a report on a criminal offense. It is interesting that the party being defended had also doubts concerning the signature on the letter of authorization issued to Ananyan.
Judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan rejected the motion to carry out a handwriting expert examination. Let us mention, that the party being defended had also doubts concerning the originality of the two documents available in the case – the report and the letter of authorization of the advocate. Meras’s representative Hrant Ananyan confirmed that report on the crime existing in the case and the letter of authorization issued to him were not the originals, they were copies.
In conversation with “1in.am” Poghosyan’s advocate Liparit Simonyan mentioned that the Preliminary Investigation body did not record the original of the report on crime: “The investigator should have recorded that the original had been submitted to him and the copy was attached to the materials of the case. Whereas there is no such a record, thus there is no the original.” Judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan announced that at that stage he did not going to refer to the question whether it was possible to institute a criminal case on the basis of a copy or not.
Let us mention that the human rights defender Marina Poghosyan had doubts that not only documents were signed in the name of Arpi Meras, but also that the testimonies were written by someone else. Let’s remind that testimonies of Arpi Meras who knew Western Armenian are written in Eastern Armenian and they are full of legal terms. And though Meras’s testimonies contain the note “Written according to my words” Marina Poghosyan states that her long-term friend does not use such a word-stock.
By the way, when Arpi Meras was being interrogated in the court Marina Poghosyan asked her whether she understood the meaning of the words “odorakich (air conditioner)”, “barni stoyka (bar counter)” and “tyuner (tuner)”, Meras told she did not know such words. Whereas in testimonies written in the course of preliminary investigation “according to her own words” contain these words.
Let us remind that this case started in July 2015 when the Yerevan City Department of the Police of the Republic of Armenia received a report on a criminal offence signed in the name of a Canadian-Armenian Arpi Meras who is the owner of “Arpi Nursery School” functioning in Toronto. It was written in the report that Marina Poghosyan sold the real estate belonging de jure to Arpi Meras without having an authorization for doing it. Even though Poghosyan had submitted three letters of authorization during the preliminary investigation for selling the apartment, an accusation was, nevertheless, brought against her and the case was forwarded to the court.
Marina Poghosyan is accused of embezzlement of particularly large amount (point 1 of part 3 of Article 179 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia) and in case of being found guilty she will face 5-8 years of imprisonment. Canadian-Armenian Arpi Meras who was declared as a victim in the case initiated also a civil case against Poghosyan claiming AMD 57.820.000 from her. Meras states that the apartment had also property, which Poghosyan embezzled too. We shall refer to Meras’s recovery claim, as well as the testimonies given by her relatives in our further publications.
Author: Arman Gharibyan
