When the Judicial Acts Compulsory Enforcement (JACE) Service employees, without proper uniforms, visited Gevorg Harutyunyan's apartment to enforce the court's decision, "they broke the gate with a metallic bar, held the welder against the landlady's two daughters' feet of to scare them, pushed Satenik, the landlady" (Satenik tells). The latter reported to the police but her statement was not accepted.

Gevorg Harutyunyan's wife, Satenik, says she demanded explanations from the chief of police for not accepting her statement: "Deputy Chief of Police Hakob Ghevondyan said: "When you make a decision at home, you do as your husband says, don't you? So in this case I have to tell them and then they take the statement."

Answering our question the Deputy Chief of Gyumri Police Hakob Ghevondyan has said he does not want to answer on phone the questions concerning Harutyunyan's statement since it is possible that someone personates a reporter and he has a right not to trust us.

Back on March 20 "Aravot" daily wrote about the Harutyunyan family and applied to the Shirak province JACE service which answered that "they were isolated from handling the matter by their colleagues from the capital" adding informally that the investigation department will decide if the JACE employees used violence or not.  

Harutyunyan family lives in the Gyumri Hostel 2 (Garegin Nzhdeh Street 7). JACE service forces them to open a new entrance from the building's main entrance. The hostel is a 4^th category emergency building and opening a new entrance means collapse of the building (even a garbage truck does not approach the hostel since it may collapse due to the truck's noise).  

More than 50 homeless families living in the hostel have already left the building; Harutyunyans' 4 member family has nowhere to go. Some 13 years ago the Council of Textile, taking into consideration conscientious work of the spouses decided give them a room in the former cinema. No dates are specified in the room allocation document which means that the family can go on living there.  

"After the earthquake, before moving here, for about 8 years we lived in a domik (temporary shelter); its wooden parts decayed," Satenik Gevorgyan, the mother of the family says. "We have seen two earthquakes, one in 1988, and the second when the domik collapsed on our heads. Now they want to oust us from here. Give us an apartment to live in and you can take this hostel."  

Kamo Mkrtchyan, the Bankruptcy Director of the Gyumri Textile Open Joint Stock Company, has sued Gevorg Harutyunyan demanding to vacate the 113.19 square meter area adjacent to the staircase and the 66.6 square meter storeroom built by the latter. Mkrtchyan won the case and now tries to demolish the staircase.

"The verdict of the first instance court mentions only the area, there is nothing in it on the staircase, and JACE service is after the staircase," Gevorg Harutyunyan says.

The latter also demanded to clarify JACE writ of execution and found out that he has to vacate the area: "There is also an illegal structure in the area. However, the court verdict does not mention illegal structure or staircase. If the judge wanted to make a decision on the staircase he would have done so," the landlord says. 

During the trial the judge did not allow Satenik, wife of Harutyunyan, to be engaged in the litigation. In the court of first instance Harutyunyan used an attorney, then he "understood that the attorney does not work well" and started to defend himself. 

The Court of Appeal left the decision of the first instance court unchanged.

Hautyunyan tells that in November 2009 he wrote a paper stating that he had vacated the adjacent area from his belongings and did not own the area any more and they came into an agreement with JACE service concerning the staircase, that it would not be demolished.

Later Kamo Mkrtchyan, the Bankruptcy Director of the Gyumri Textile Open Joint Stock Company, explained to the family that the area adjacent to the staircase already had an owner - employee of the Administrative Court Garik Mkrtchyan. But when the family asked to show the property certificate, Garik Mkrtchyan failed to do that. 

"I told him to show a sales contract or a certificate proving that the area belongs to him. I am ready to give him the keys, let the man enter his own property, but Garik does not show any document proving his right. If Garik has nothing to present to me, I have no keys for him. And because of this CAJE service manifested biased approach and restarted its actions," Harutyunyan says.

CAJE recommended Harutyunyan to make an inquiry to the judge concerning the area and the staircase but when he did so he received a reply that CAJE had to make an official inquiry to the judge. However CAJE has not yet made any inquiry. 

"I am telling CAJE that I am ready to carry out the verdict against me. But bring me a verdict against my wife. When I complained to the prosecutor's office they explained that we are one family but I said we had no common property, say, I commit a crime will you detain me together with my wife? They say no. If no then bring a verdict also for my wife," Harutyunyan explains.

Satenik Gevorgyan has the plan of the area belonging to Textile with mayor Ghukasyan's signature proving that the property belongs to the community and not to Textile. She insists that at a meeting with her the mayor himself confirmed that the area belongs to the community. The family believes that all this mess is because the area is in the center of the town and they want to get it.   

"They fight each other for a tiny plot of land. They are strong, they pay money, we try the law but it's useless," he says. "I have a status of a jobless and we hardly make ends meet. We don't have the means to rent a house till they settle the question with our apartment."      

Christine Vardanyan

P.S. Before publishing the story we learned that Shirak region Prosecutor's Office has accepted Satenik Gevorgyan's statement and set it going. Preliminary investigation is carried out.