Today the daily newspaper "Zhoghovurd", referring to the photocopy of the complaint (mediation) of the advocate Tigran Muradyan, the representative of LLC, which was injured by the fire in the "Surmalu" shopping center and a criminal case was initiated in 06.04.2021, accused the prosecutor's office for the fact that, although the petition pointed out a number of gross security violations in "Surmalu" shopping center and urged to take measures to stop the activity of "Surmalu" trade center, but the Prosecutor of Yerevan city did not respond to the petition, and the Prosecutor General's office was lead to inaction.

 

However, the accusations made in the article are completely groundless. The circumstances mentioned in it not only significantly misrepresent the facts, but are also based on superficial judgments on the powers of the Prosecutor's Office.

 

First of all, the investigator appointed a complex forensic technical, forensic fire engineering and forensic commodification examination still on 04.07.2021 in the frame of the criminal case.

 

On July 14, 2021 the Prosecutor's office of Yerevan city received the lawyer T. Muradyan’s complaint of 07.09.2021 the, including the issues already known from the photocopy of the document attached to the publication.

 

The prosecutor supervising the legality of the pre-trial proceedings of the criminal case on sent the petition of the lawyer to the body implementing the proceedings on 19.07.2021 in accordance with the law, and the lawyer was informed in written form on 19.07.2021. The investigator, discussing the petition, made a decision on 28.07.2021 to satisfy the relevant point of the petition regarding asking additional questions to the experts and providing additional materials, so the questions mentioned in the petition were sent to the center of expertise.

 

The investigator informed the lawyer about this in a corresponding letter, noting that the circumstances mentioned in the petition were investigated in the frame of the preliminary investigation. It was also explained that it will be possible to address the issue of seizing the property of "Yerevan Canning Factory" CJSC, the owner of "Surmalu" shopping center, only after finding out the circumstances of essential importance for the criminal case, and the discussion of the petition in that regard has been postponed.

 

It worth mentioning that according to Article 232 of the Criminal Procedure Code seizure could only be implied against the suspect and the accused, as well as the property of the persons on whom material responsibility for the actions of the suspect and the accused could be imposed. Meanwhile, there was no person involved as an accused during that time. So, the claim in the article that no response has been given to the petition has nothing to do with reality.

 

Both in the published article and in the comments, the powers of the prosecutor's office in relation to stopping the activity of any subject, in this case, an entrepreneur, were clearly distorted.

 

According to the RA Law "On the RA Prosecutor’s Office" and the Criminal Procedure Code, the prosecutor hasn’t any power to directly stop the activity of an entrepreneurial entity.