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On February 24, 2016, the General Jurisdiction Court of Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun administrative districts, Yerevan, presided by L. Avetisyan, resumed examination of the appeal by Artur Sakunts, representative of Gayane Arustamyan, against the RA SIS High-Profile Cases Investigator A. Tadevosyan’s decree of August 8, 2015 on not initiating criminal prosecution and discontinuing the criminal proceedings.

The court hearing was attended by the plaintiff’s representative A. Sakunts, M. Sargsyan, Prosecutor at the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, and A. Tadevosyan, Investigator for High-Profile Cases at RA SIS, responsible for the investigation.

A. Sakunts expressed a position on the materials of preliminary investigation. Note that the previous court hearing had been adjourned for him to get familiar with such materials. A. Sakunts mentioned that the preliminary investigation files contained the materials on administrative offense prepared by G. Arustamyan at Kentronakan Division of RA Yerevan City Police Department. The materials above come to show exactly that the police officers applied special measures, i.e. handcuffs against G. Arustamyan. A. Sakunts noted that the investigative agency gave no legal assessment to the question of whether using handcuffs by police officers was lawful and whether they had the right to keep and use handcuffs in their capacity of patrol service police officers. A. Sakunts referred to the provisions of the RA Law on Police regulating the procedure for applying special means and mentioned that the grounds stipulated by such provisions were not present during the administrative arrest of G. Arustamyan. A. Sakunts also provided arguments to the effect that due to the disproportionate actions by the RA Police officers, G. Arustamyan developed serious health problems and at the material time received treatment abroad with the diagnosis of post-traumatic depression. A. Sakunts noted that the investigative agency gave no legal assessment to the existence of a causal link between G. Arustamyan’s health problems and the actions of the RA Police officers.

Hence, A. Sakunts insisted on the appeal and requested the Court to annul the decree of A. Tadevosyan, RA SIS Investigator for High-Profile Cases dated August 8, 2015 on not initiating criminal prosecution, suspending criminal proceedings and to send the case to preliminary investigation.

Judge L. Avetisyan asked A. Sakunts a question to find out why G. Arustamyan had not told at the police division about the violence used against her. In response to the question, A. Sakunts stated that firstly, in her explanation records, G. Arustamyan had indicated that she refused to provide any explanations to the police which used Fascist regime principles to kidnap her and then after leaving the police department, she gave an interview to the mass media in front of the police division and voiced the incident.

After publication of the materials on the examination of the appeal, the agency responsible for the investigation expressed its position. Particularly, the agency stated that its conclusions based on the files of preliminary investigation were provided in its decree to suspend the criminal proceedings and the decree also contained an analysis of every argument raised in the appeal. The representative of the investigative agency noted that the agency conducted a thorough, comprehensive and objective investigation. In his testimony during the preliminary investigation, D. Piliposyan stated that he used handcuffs against G. Arustamyan since she pushed him to and forth and resisted, and the other police officers provided similar testimonies. He mentioned that G. Arustamyan was arrested since, among other reasons, she had no identification documents upon her. A. Tadevosyan also noted that the facts of the case were detailed in the video available in case files. By noting that the investigative agency had done its best, A. Tadevosyan required the Court to dismiss the appeal above.

A. Sakunts stated that the investigator introduced the case materials in a one-sided manner. In particular, he referred to the explanation of the police officer Narek Azaryan filed in the case where he stated that G. Arustamyan had not hit or used any violence against him.

Prosecutor M. Sargysan, who supervised the preliminary investigation, mentioned that the agency responsible for the preliminary investigation complied with the requirements of Article 17 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code and the prosecutor’s decree on the appeal of the investigator’s decree to suspend the criminal proceedings reflected the legality of both the use of handcuffs and the administrative detention. He also referred to G. Arustamyan’s psychological screening records submitted to the Court by A. Sakunts mentioning that the records were obtained after suspension of the criminal proceedings and might not be used as a basis to substantiate the appeal.

A. Sakunts made another statement that the aggrieved party used its own means to have G. Arustamyan’s psychological screening conducted since the investigating agency had failed to do so during the preliminary proceedings. Also, A. Sakunts concluded that the State failed to take adequate efforts to give a legal assessment to the actions of police officers.

Since the Court was overloaded with other hearings, the examination of the appeal was adjourned till March 17, 2016, at 10:30 am.