PROSECUTOR INFORMED

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Press release of the RA General Prosecutor’s office The RA Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan received today the delegation headed by Co-reporters of the PACE Monitoring Committee John Prescott and George Colombie. The issues discussed during the meeting related to the preliminary investigation of the riots that took place in Yerevan on March 1-2 of 2008, the charges pressed against the accused and the legal evaluations. The RA Prosecutor General informed that all the accused under arrest during the preliminary investigation had been investigated during the first six months of preliminary investigation and 90 criminal cases for 111 people had been sent to the court. Upon the request of the co-reporters, touching upon the charges pressed against the 7 accused of the case under investigation in the Yerevan criminal court based on the 1st part of article 300 and the 3rd part of article 225 of the RA Criminal Code, the RA Prosecutor General informed that according to the evidence from the preliminary investigation, the riots that took place in the capital did not end in themselves for the organizers; rather, they were a means for state appropriation. The seven defendants of the case based on the information of the preliminary investigation-Alexander Arzumanyan, Hakob Hakobyan, Miasnik Malkhasyan, Sasun Mikayelyan, Shant Harutyunyan, Grigor Voskerchyan and Suren Sirunyan-have played a key role in the riots. Hovsepyan made it clear that the mentioned people were charged not for committing murders, but for organizing the riots that led up to the murders. It was also mentioned that the riots and the rallies that preceded them could not be considered peaceful because there was enough evidence showing that the participants were armed. The prosecutors of the preliminary investigation weighed the evidence as substantiated and sufficient to send the case to court where they will be examined during the trial. The RA Prosecutor General noted that the trial has not begun and it is hard to predict how the court will evaluate the evidence. The RA Prosecutor General also mentioned a number of statistics according to which 26 people are no longer under persecution and their cases have been annulled, while five have received a fair trial. Touching upon the murders registered as a result of special measures used by the police, the Prosecutor General informed that the Prosecutor’s office has appealed to a number of international organizations with the request for help in clarifying the issue, but all organizations, including the UN, the OSCE Yerevan office, the U.S. Embassy of Armenia have refused to send experts stating that they don’t have practice, experts or equipment. There has been correspondence with the expert proposed by CE Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg. The preliminary investigation has ended with the accused under preliminary arrest, while the preliminary investigation of the main criminal case at the special investigative service is still in progress and measures are being taken to reveal others who were involved in the crime, as well as give legal evaluations to police actions and reveal all circumstances for the ten murders.