On July 1, the 16th Istanbul Heavy Penal Court began hearing what is possibly one of the most intriguing and bizarre fraud cases in Turkey’s judicial history.

The plaintiff in the case is Archbishop Aram Atesyan, the acting Armenian patriarch. In an earlier article for Al-Monitor, I had explained how Atesyan took over the post when Patriarch Mesrob II fell seriously ill.

At the hearing, Atesyan recounted how, during last year’s holy month of Ramadan, he met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a dinner breaking a fast and discussed with him the issue of the return of the Sanasaryan Han, a historical commercial building in Istanbul that was originally a property of the Armenian Patriarchate but is now held by the Directorate General of Foundations (VGM). A few days later, a man who introduced himself as an inspector in charge of the national estate visited the patriarchate. He asked Atesyan to sign papers with the Prime Ministry’s letterhead, saying that the Sanasaryan Han would be returned to the patriarchate. The man then requested a “gift” and received 6,000 Turkish lira (about $2,800) before vanishing in thin air. Soon, Atesyan realized they were conned.

The Sanasaryan Han is only one of many Armenian properties the VGM seized in the 1970s following an Appeals Court ruling that invalidated certain legal transactions by non-Muslim community foundations. Given its size and central location in Istanbul, this building is perhaps the one with the highest value. The first round in a legal battle over the building’s ownership drew to a close on July 3, with the patriarchate losing. It is hard to predict how the appeal process will end.