Armenia’s Kotayk Court of First Instance today upheld the Prosecutor General’s Office's request to return illegally auctioned land in Tzakhkadzor to the state,

The court, as evidence of wrongdoing, cited a Hetq investigation entitled Former Armenian Officials and Their Associates Privatize Fifty Hectares of Forested Lands.

The court case stems from a 2007 government decision to provide the Hrazdan community with 14 hectares of forest area in the Hrazdan Forestry, which had been a specially protected area before.

In the same year, the area was put up at auction with different lots and acquired within a month by various officials and their affiliates.

The lawsuits filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office to invalidate the auction of 24 land plots and to appoint legal consequences are still in court.