Banuchyan says that it was made up
Vice-director of the Matenadaran Arshak Banuchyan's advocate Tigran Atanesyan was supposed to make a defense speech today. However, it turned out that judge of the Kentron and Nork-Marash districts' first instance court, Gagik Poghosyan, was participating in a seminar today and the trial was postponed to December 7 at 4 p.m.
Let us remind that Arshak Banuchyan was charged with Point 3, Part 2 of Article 179 of the RA Criminal Code on July 29, 2008 for squandering and Part 1, Article 205 for evasion of taxes. By the way, today marks one year since the beginning of this criminal trial. As advocate Tigran Atanesyan told "A1+", in this period, the prosecutors have not been able to prove anything in the past year. According to him, there is no evidence regarding the case and the only thing was achieved as a result of threats and pressure. That is the reason why the trial has been going on for a year and the investigation of evidence shows that that evidence has nothing to do with the charge.
The prosecutor demanded that Banuchyan be sentenced for four years. "This, in my opinion, is revenge and an inhuman approach," Atanesyan said, adding that the prosecutor didn't substantiate their demand. On the contrary, according to the advocate, he even made some discoveries. For instance, the prosecutor discovered a new version of a contract. "This is the biggest humiliation in Armenian reality," he underscored.
Arshak Banuchyan said that the criminal case was made up. "There is no other form of political persecution. First, they make up a myth and start defending it. We have seen numerous examples of that in the cases of many political figures and 15 of them are still in prison."
Hearing the prosecutor's accusatory speech, Arshak Banuchyan got the impression that the prosecutor had not participated in the trials in the past year because he didn't present the trial in its entirety. "That was the accusatory conclusion of the preliminary investigative body, which was absurd and full of contradicting information and comments. Such documents can't be interpreted and are simply materials to read and weep," Arshak Banuchyan said.
