YEREVAN. – Zhoghovurd newspaper of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes: Zhoghovurd daily got hold of an exclusive document.

It turns out that the safety rules have not been observed at the Surmalu shopping center [in Yerevan] since last year, and many people, motivated by their safety, had to leave the shopping center.

And so, according to the document that has come under our possession, Tigran Muradyan, the lawyer of one of the affected businessmen of the shopping center in the case of the fire that broke out at the Surmalu shopping center on April 6, 2021, submitted a petition to Yerevan city prosecutor Sevak Hovhannisyan and recorded about a number of gross [safety] violations [at Surmalu], urging [him] to take measures in order to stop the activity of the Surmalu shopping center. Yerevan city prosecutor Sevak Hovhannisyan did not give any answer to the petition.

In this case, the Prosecutor General’s Office, represented by Yerevan city prosecutor Sevak Hovhannisyan, has been specifically inactive in this case for a year.

The RA Investigation Committee has been inactive for about 1 year, as the investigation into the case on the fire that broke out at the Surmalu shopping center on April 6, 2021 is still ongoing.

The SNOC of Expertise also showed suspicious slowness, as it did not issue the expert conclusion for a year; it was received only a month ago. The professional conclusion confirmed that the management of the shopping center did not observe the safety rules.

If a year ago the Prosecutor General’s Office had not shown suspicious inattention and properly investigated the petition of the lawyer where many [safety] violations were reported, and what's more, the investigator had not deceived the lawyer [saying] that the matter would be discussed after receiving the results of the examination, today we would not have had 16 casualties [as a result of the powerful explosion at the Surmalu shopping market on August 14].