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On March 29, 2016, the RA Court of Criminal Appeals, presided by judge S. Chichoyan, started examination of the appeal against the General Jurisdiction Court of Ararat and Vayots Dzor RA marzes (regions) ruling dated February 18, 2016, by Tatevik Siradeghyan, lawyer at Yerevan Office of HCA Vanadzor and representative of Murad Khachatryan, successor to victim under the case of Grisha Khachatryan’s death. By its ruling, the General Jurisdiction Court dismissed the complaint of Artur Sakunts, representative of victim’s successor and Chairman of HCA Vanadzor, on discontinuing the criminal proceedings.

The court hearing of March 29, 2016 was attended by victim’s successor M. Khachatryan and his/her representative Tatevik Siradeghyan. The court hearing was not attended by Anushavan Harutyunyan, Deputy Military Prosecutor of the Garrison, and Levon Yeghoyan, Deputy Head of the 8^th Garrison Investigation Division of the General Military Investigation Department of the RA Investigative Committee, responsible for the investigation. The latter had filed a written motion to the effect that he could not attend the court hearing on its scheduled day due to another previously planned activity. At the same time, by his motion, he requested the Court to adjourn the hearing, so that he could attend the hearing on examination of the appeal and express his position.

The representative of the victim’s successor left the resolution of the issue raised in the motion to the Court’s discretion and M. Khachatryan found that the court hearing could be resumed.

Presiding judge S. Chichoyan ruled to resume the hearing to present the grounds of the appeal.

T. Siradeghyan presented the grounds of the appeal. In particular, she presented arguments to the effect that the preliminary investigation did not reveal all the circumstances of G. Khachatryan’s death and did not exclude the hypotheses that another person might have caused the death of G. Khachatryan and that he might have inflicted a fatal gunshot injury by negligence by breaking the rules for handling weapons. Given this, T. Siradeghyan noted that the agency responsible for investigation could not come to an unequivocal conclusion that the death was caused by violation of the rules for handling weapons. At the same time, T. Siradeghyan also submitted grounds to the effect that during the preliminary investigation, no assessment was given to the issue of existence or absence of any causal link between the actions of the commanders of the military unit and immediate commanders of G. Khachatryan and consequences of such actions, especially given that the preliminary investigation substantiated that there had been no shift handover, in case of which the assistant to the sergeant of the position should have also checked the state of the serviceman’s weapon. Hence, T. Siradeghyan requested the Court to make a new judicial act and reverse the ruling on dismissing the complaint issued by the First-Instance General Jurisdiction Court of Ararat and Vayots Dzor marzes, RA dated February 18, 2016.

M. Khachatryan mentioned that his/her son had done his service properly and had no complaints related to it, and said that he/she was sure that his/her son was murdered finding that he could not have caused himself such an injury.

The Court decided to adjourn the hearing to ensure the attendance of the agency responsible for investigation.

The next court hearing on this case is scheduled for April 20, 2016, 1 pm.