On June 5, 2009, the Kentron and Nork-Marash District Court, Judge A. Melkonyan presiding, partially found in favor of a suit filed by Levon Kocharyan, the younger son of former RoA President Robert Kocharyan, vs. the newspaper “Haykakan Zhamanak”, ordering the paper to retract its previous report and fined it 3.620 million drams in damages in favor of the former president’s son.

On February 6, 2009, the daily “Haykakan Zhamanak” had published a front page story with the following – “Just a few days before New Year’s, local Dubai police arrested Robert Kocharyan’s younger son, Levon Kocharyan, while in a drunken stupor. According to credible witnesses, arrested along with the younger Kocharyan was the son of well-known Moscow lawyer Gena and two others. While many attempts to mediate on behalf of Kocharyan were made, local law enforcement only released him after four days in custody and with the demand of supplying proper documentation. According to our sources, Levon Kocharyan was arrested for disorderly conduct.” That very same day, Viktor Soghomonyan, who manages Robert Kocharyan’s office, refuted the news, noting that the last time Levon Kocharyan was in Dubai was in December 2007. Levon Kocharyan applied to the court on March 25, 2009, demanding that “Haykakan Zhamanak” retract the news slandering his honor and reputation and recompense him for material and moral injury. The petition read, “The information published in the article in question doesn’t correspond to reality and blemish the good name and reputation of the plaintiff…The plaintiff was in the RoA both at New Years and days before, particularly from December 15-30, thus he couldn’t have been in Dubai at the same time, a few days before New Years, in a drunken state and furthermore arrested by the Dubai police. Thus, the information doesn’t correspond to reality; they are misrepresentations and aren’t credible.”

Arpine Melikbekyan, Levon Kocharyan’s defense lawyer, provided a copy of the plaintiff’s passport and his diplomatic passport. There were no stamps in either attesting to the fact that he had been in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during the time period mentioned by “Haykakan Zhamanak” or that he crossed the border of that country. The lawyer also offered into court the response issued by the UAE Foreign Ministry at the request of the plaintiff according to which UAE officials had checked their files and could come up with no record of Levon Kocharyan ever having been taken into custody or pursued by law enforcement. According to the lawyer, the “Haykakan Zhamanak” article was baseless and a figment of one’s imagination and not credibly substantiated. Neither were the sources noted, which leads one to infer that the article was based on rumor, not checked for accuracy, and thus was a means for sensationalist journalism used to sell more copies and make a profit. Such news allegedly caused financial injury to Levon Kocharyan. In the suit, it is calculated that 8,000 copies of “Haykakan Zhamanak” were printed on that day at a newsstand price of 100 drams a piece. In other words, the paper raked in revenues of 80,000 drams. This is the figure that was written in the suit. (K.A. – In fact the figure should have read 800,000 drams). “In addition, this article lead to false information regarding the plaintiff to be spread by other news outlets for which the defendant also received payment. Today, for one news outlet to purchase an article from another costs 10,000 drams. Thus, if we take into account that the “Haykakan Zhamanak” issue of that day was distributed to six and more media outlets («Day.az», «tert.am», «Armtown.com», «Arminfo.info», «News.ru», «Trend.az», «Newsmegainfo.ru»), we can argue that the plaintiff received an average of 60,000 drams in payment,” noted the suit. According to the prosecution, each of the other news outlets each received an average of 80,000 drams based on the fact that they carried the sensational story and that their papers sold. Accordingly, Levon Kocharyan suffered damages to the tune of 620,000 drams. The legal fees incurred by Levon Kocharyan were assessed at 3 million drams, resulting in a total damages amount of 3,620,000 drams. The suit also reads, “The plaintiff also suffered moral damage since the news has spread and published in the foreign press and internet and was used for political purposes. The baseless and inaccurate news spread by “Haykakan Zhamanak” served as a basis to use the name of Levon Kocharyan, the son of Robert Kocharyan, the second president of the RoA, to disparage and slander the good name of the Republic of Armenia and to portray Armenians as ‘hooligans’ and ‘criminals’ before world public opinion. Such vilification also tacitly impacts the public interests of the Republic of Armenia.” On this basis the suit sought moral damages of 12.5 million drams. The prosecution demanded that the court compel “Haykakan Zhamanak” to refute the slanderous and disparaging news it had published and recompense the plaintiff for financial and moral damage suffered in the amount of 16,120,000 drams.

Tigran Atanesyan, who defended “Haykakan Zhamanak” in court, believes that, “In the list of the absurd and incomprehensible is the claim of the plaintiff that the defendant is selling that news at 10,000 drams a pop to other news outlets. It’s a baseless claim, since the defendant knows of no such cases when a news outlet has ever paid for using the reportage of another when a proper attribution is made. It is nothing more than totally baseless conjecture on behalf of the plaintiff’s counsel.” Tigran Atanesyan also argues that, “Attached to the plaintiff’s suit was a copy of his RoA citizen passport. Upon examination it turns out that the passport’s validity to travel overseas expired on February 5, 2007. Thus, we are to conclude that the plaintiff hasn’t left the territory of Armenia from February 5, 2007 till today. However, Viktor Soghomonyan, the director of the second president’s office, declared in a statement regarding the news in question that the last time the plaintiff was in Dubai was in December, 2007. In other words, according to Mr. Soghomonyan, the plaintiff travelled to Dubai at least ten months after his passport expired.” In the opinion of the defense team the plaintiff possesses at least two diplomatic passports. “This is substantiated on the basis of the well-known fact that the plaintiff was in the Serbian capital of Belgrade in 2008 to attend the Eurovision performance of the noted singer Sirousho.” Tigran Atanesyan also motioned the court to demand a notice from the National Security Service (NSS) stating how many times Levon Kocharyan has travelled outside of Armenia as of January 1, 2007 and the dates involved. The lawyer says that he personally requested the information from the NSS but that they answered that such information related to the personal and family life of Levon Kocharyan. In any event, the court rejected the lawyer’s motion. The court also rejected the other motion of Tigran Atanesyan – to grant a recess of two months to allow for the receipt of an answer to their inquiry directed to the UAE’s justice organs via the RoA Ministry of Justice.

On June 5, 2009, Judge A. Melkonyan passed sentence in the case of Levon Kocharyan vs. “Haykakan Zhamanak” (owned by Dareskizb Ltd) centering on the February 6, 2009 article that appeared in the daily newspaper. Judge Melkonyan partially found in favor of the plaintiff and set a sum of 3,620,000 drams as recompensation for material damage suffered by Levon Kocharyan, rejecting the 12.5 million in moral damages sought by the plaintiff. The court decided to compel ‘Haykakan Zhamanak’ to retract the news published on February 6, 2009, slandering the good name and reputation of Levon Robert Kocharyan by publishing a ‘retraction notice’ of equal prominence to the original article. The court rejected the plaintiff’s demand of 12.5 million drams in moral damages, finding that suitable grounds for moral damage were absent. The court also decided that 72,400 drams were to be paid by the paper into the state budget. Lawyer Tigran Atanesyan, the paper’s attorney, stated, “This is a serious blow to the freedom of speech in Armenia. The suit was totally baseless and the evidence examined during the trial was no foundation for the judge to pass such a sentence. However, if we are sincere and realize what country we live in and the conditions that exist, it probably took some effort to allow the judge the right to reject part of the suit.” Arpine Melikbekian, Levon Kocharyan’s lawyer, refused to comment on the ruling when asked by reporters. “Haykakan Zhamanak” will appeal the court’s sentence. We will take the matter to the Court of Appeals and later to other tribunals, even as far as the European Court, because we are in the right,” said Anna Hakobyan, the newspaper’s manager.