AGOS WEEKLY, Istanbul
Oct 25 2009

Agopyan family wins 60-year lawsuit

25 Ekim 2009

Fighting through legal channels for the return of their property in
Tarabya that was confiscated by the Treasury in 1949, the Agopyan
family won a legal battle that has been going on since 1991.

When 11 of the family’s 25 acres of land in Kirecburnu and Tarabya
were transferred to the Treasury during the cadastral surveys in 1949,
the land owner Marten Agopyan had filed a lawsuit. Then, while the
lawsuit was still in progress, the events of September 6-7, 1955 came
to pass and the family had to leave for the U.K.

After the death of Marten Agopyan, his son Bedros Agopyan restarted
the legal struggle. The court ruled for return of the land to the
Agopyan family in 2005. The Treasury filed a lawsuit for `annulment of
title deed’ against this decision, but the court rejected the
Treasury’s request on January 2008. The Treasury then appealed the
decision. During the course of the legal process, on June 18, 2008,
Bedros Agopyan passed away. Agopyan’s wife and daughters intervened in
the lawsuit after his death.

Agopyan family’s attorney Cafer Gül answered our questions regarding
the lawsuit.

In a news story in Agos newspaper dated January 11, 2008, we reported
that Bedros Mardiros Leon Agopyan had managed to take back 8,5 of 24
acres of land, winning the title deed annulment lawsuit filed by the
Treasury, and that the court had rejected the counter lawsuit of the
Treasury. How did the process go on after that date?

After we won the lawsuit, the Treasury demanded retrial on the grounds
that Agopyan’s father made a speech in Bucharest to provoke people
against the Ottomans before World War I. Considering that Marten
Agopyan never went to Bucharest and was a U.K citizen, the Sariyer
Civil Court of First Instance rejected the request for retrial. Then,
they applied to the Court of Appeals, but the decision of the Sariyer
Civil Court of First Instance was sustained. So, there was no reason
to renew trial. Now the Treasury has the right of correction of
decision, and we are waiting for that.

The land is gained back in part. What are your expectations for the rest?

We primarily deal with lost lands. We’ve managed to take 8,5 acres so
far, and there are 15,5 acres lost. We recovered them partially. There
are lands registered in the name of municipalities and individuals. We
are waiting for enactment of a new law regarding the return of
minority properties or compensation for lost ones. Otherwise, we will
resort to the ECtHR because the land cannot be recovered. We filed a
lawsuit in Civil Court, but we could not recover the land. Thus we
have come to the end of local legal channels, and we have to resort to
the ECtHR.

There are many buildings on the land. What will happen to them?

We applied for prevention of action on the land, but our request for
destruction was rejected. We won the lawsuits filed for compensation.
They paid partially, and there are ongoing trials. We collected part
of the payments.

Son of an Armenian family from Kayseri, Marten Agopyan established a
bank in the early 1900s in Istanbul, but went to Romania with his
family upon the British Consulate’s warning that `we cannot ensure
security of your life against Germans’ at the beginning of the First
World War in 1914. The family had returned to Istanbul after
non-Muslims were given the right of property as part of the foundation
of the Turkish Republic.