So, I have been warning in previous posts that I had a story to tell as regards this subject and now our situation has progressed to the point where I feel compelled to begin the narrative. I fear this is just the beginning of many posts in our longstanding personal nightmare but regardless how it turns out I hope it stands as a warning to others about an unresolved situation that is still ongoing throughout the country as we speak and the result of not being fierce in ones response. All my heart and best wishes go out to all of you in similar circumstances who are not only not receiving help from officials but are in fact being victimized further by the very people who are supposed to be installing a civil society in Latvia, at the EU's expense. It's not all playgrounds for tiny tots and waste & water infrastructure you know! Drop me a line or point me to a group that will help us out with this matter.
BACKGROUND:
My wife is a repatriate. Her mother and grandmother were born in a house in Tukums, Latvia but my wife was born in Moscow where her mother was forced to flee after she had her ancestral Tukums land and houses de-privatized by the government of the day. When the Soviet Union fell my wife had her Tukums land and houses made available for her and her relatives to reclaim but through a loophole in the law and the inability of my wife or her relatives to frequently travel back & forth from Moscow to Tukums to prevent the loss of some of this land, my wife and her relatives had a 851m2 centre portion (the house my wife's mother was born in!) taken over by a Latvian couple rendering the remaining larger property into the shape of a donut. A one hectare piece of land with fierce opportunists laying claim to 851m2 in the very centre. My wife and her relatives were compensated with 851m2 of low lying adjacent swamp land of poor quality.
One third of our property was unfenced wild swampland (especially the "compensated" land) along with an area of old orchard that the fierce opportunists in the centre 851m2 had attempted to lay claim, at first by offering to rent it from us and when rebuffed by simply using it without permission and against our directives to not trespass.
So at great expense we fenced all this land, cleared it, posted it as Private and continued to maintain it sometimes hiring local workers who were given access to our equipment but mostly by myself when I was in town. In spite of the greater security provided to the citizens residing in the centre of our property by this newly secured land at no cost to them the personal attacks continued not only on ourselves but on some of our elderly and timid renters with no relief being afforded by the Tukums Municipal Police or State Police who were actually complicit in what can only be described as state approved harassment through laziness.
The situation eventually degenerated to the point where on September 3rd of this year I was forced to defend myself physically against the male occupant of the 851m2 plot who was flagrantly trespassing and interfering with a survey crew who we had been forced to hire to settle a longstanding and never-ending issue of property borders. They were entitled to 851m2 and any movement of one border would result in a corresponding movement of another border negating the entire process in order to maintain the original 851m2. Pure harassment.
He attacked me when we attempted to verbally remove him from our land on which he was trespassing and interfering with our survey crew and the police were called. Ambulances were called because there was blood. And so....
I was advised by the police to go the hospital to get checked out and then to the police station to make a statement and to do it that very day. He apparently went to the hospital to get his head sewed up but declined to make a statement at the police station, or so we were told on that day. We were also told that if I wanted to make a criminal claim against this guy, which I surely wanted to do then we would both my wife and I have to stay in the country for six months. Since we were booked to fly to Italy in two days I waved my right to initiate criminal proceeding and off we went on our trip. In two weeks when we came back there was a letter from the Tukums Region State Police stating that criminal charges had been dropped since we had not pursued any action within the 10 days allowed which was pretty much what I expected. But on November 19 we received letters commanding us to return to the Tukums State Police office on November 26 as the instigator of this assault had decided to press his own criminal charges, or rather he had pressed criminal charges two days after the original assault and they were now being acted upon by the authorities, I never did get a straight answer on this. After being told that they wanted statements from both my wife and I separately we declined and told them that my lawyer would be in touch since I was a foreigner I was not comfortable with the action taking place. They were fine with that.
The inspector we have been dealing with has been a professional but someone above her is manipulating the situation where instead of me filing charges against a trespasser who assaulted me in front of witnesses I am now myself the subject of a criminal investigation. As a non-citizen I do not know what my rights are and I do not trust the Tukums Police.
update: I cleaned up the above text and edited it to resemble more closely what I told the lawyer and added the comment below to bring it all up to speed.
So today we acquired a lawyer and she seems to fit the bill. Tukums being a small town of 18,000 souls is basically one big group of relatives and she claims to know how to deal with such sleepy societies. She goes to the town tomorrow and I go to the hospital to get my records. This will move very fast so as to prevent it from moving to the prosecutors office.
BACKGROUND:
My wife is a repatriate. Her mother and grandmother were born in a house in Tukums, Latvia but my wife was born in Moscow where her mother was forced to flee after she had her ancestral Tukums land and houses de-privatized by the government of the day. When the Soviet Union fell my wife had her Tukums land and houses made available for her and her relatives to reclaim but through a loophole in the law and the inability of my wife or her relatives to frequently travel back & forth from Moscow to Tukums to prevent the loss of some of this land, my wife and her relatives had a 851m2 centre portion (the house my wife's mother was born in!) taken over by a Latvian couple rendering the remaining larger property into the shape of a donut. A one hectare piece of land with fierce opportunists laying claim to 851m2 in the very centre. My wife and her relatives were compensated with 851m2 of low lying adjacent swamp land of poor quality.
One third of our property was unfenced wild swampland (especially the "compensated" land) along with an area of old orchard that the fierce opportunists in the centre 851m2 had attempted to lay claim, at first by offering to rent it from us and when rebuffed by simply using it without permission and against our directives to not trespass.
So at great expense we fenced all this land, cleared it, posted it as Private and continued to maintain it sometimes hiring local workers who were given access to our equipment but mostly by myself when I was in town. In spite of the greater security provided to the citizens residing in the centre of our property by this newly secured land at no cost to them the personal attacks continued not only on ourselves but on some of our elderly and timid renters with no relief being afforded by the Tukums Municipal Police or State Police who were actually complicit in what can only be described as state approved harassment through laziness.
The situation eventually degenerated to the point where on September 3rd of this year I was forced to defend myself physically against the male occupant of the 851m2 plot who was flagrantly trespassing and interfering with a survey crew who we had been forced to hire to settle a longstanding and never-ending issue of property borders. They were entitled to 851m2 and any movement of one border would result in a corresponding movement of another border negating the entire process in order to maintain the original 851m2. Pure harassment.
He attacked me when we attempted to verbally remove him from our land on which he was trespassing and interfering with our survey crew and the police were called. Ambulances were called because there was blood. And so....
I was advised by the police to go the hospital to get checked out and then to the police station to make a statement and to do it that very day. He apparently went to the hospital to get his head sewed up but declined to make a statement at the police station, or so we were told on that day. We were also told that if I wanted to make a criminal claim against this guy, which I surely wanted to do then we would both my wife and I have to stay in the country for six months. Since we were booked to fly to Italy in two days I waved my right to initiate criminal proceeding and off we went on our trip. In two weeks when we came back there was a letter from the Tukums Region State Police stating that criminal charges had been dropped since we had not pursued any action within the 10 days allowed which was pretty much what I expected. But on November 19 we received letters commanding us to return to the Tukums State Police office on November 26 as the instigator of this assault had decided to press his own criminal charges, or rather he had pressed criminal charges two days after the original assault and they were now being acted upon by the authorities, I never did get a straight answer on this. After being told that they wanted statements from both my wife and I separately we declined and told them that my lawyer would be in touch since I was a foreigner I was not comfortable with the action taking place. They were fine with that.
The inspector we have been dealing with has been a professional but someone above her is manipulating the situation where instead of me filing charges against a trespasser who assaulted me in front of witnesses I am now myself the subject of a criminal investigation. As a non-citizen I do not know what my rights are and I do not trust the Tukums Police.
update: I cleaned up the above text and edited it to resemble more closely what I told the lawyer and added the comment below to bring it all up to speed.
No comments:
Post a Comment