Court hearing on servicemen who died of chickenpox postponed
15:13, May 14, 2015 | News, Own news | Hayk KhachatryanOn May 12, 2015, the RA Criminal Court of Appeal, presided by Judge H. Ter-Adamyan, proceeded with the examination of victims successor Movses Khachatryan’s appeal against the ruling by the first instance court of general jurisdiction of Erebuni and Nubarashen administrative districts of Yerevan city RA to discontinue criminal proceedings and suspend the criminal prosecution against the defendants on the case of military serviceman Hayk Khachatryan who died of chickenpox. Note that the previous court hearing on this case was adjourned due to the nonattendance of the victim’s successor and his legal representative. Movses Khachatryan, victim’s successor did not attend the hearing of May 12, 2015. His legal representative, advocate Mushegh Shushanyan informed the court that M. Khachatryan had broken his shoulder and asked the court to proceed with the trial in his absence. The other parties to trial, prosecutor A. Yeghiazaryan, defendants Minas Mkrtchyan and Mikayel Mikayelyan and their advocates Levon Poghosyan and Varduhi Elbakyan did not object to holding the court hearing in the absence of the victim’s successor. Upon making sure that there were no challenge motions, the Court resumed the trial. The presiding judge M. Ter-Adamyan provided a brief outline of the judicial act of the first instance court as well as of the appeal by the victim’s successor and his representative and the relevant response provided by prosecutor A. Yeghiazaryan. Then the judge gave the floor to M. Shushanyan, representative of the victim’s successor to present the arguments in favor of the appeal. The latter absolutely insisted on his appeal, found it useless to provide the contents of the appeal and asked the Court to declare the breach of Articles 2, 3 and 13 of the European Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, reverse the judicial act of the general jurisdiction court of Erebuni and Nubarashen administrative districts of Yerevan city RA and forward the case to a lower court. Prosecutor A. Yeghiazaryan also outlined the arguments of his response to the appeal. He also mentioned in his speech that the judicial act by the court of general jurisdiction was lawful and met amnesty regulations. The case trial lasted for almost two and a half years, which meant that the court took all possible measures within its jurisdiction to ensure objective, complete and thorough investigation of the case, as well as appointed 2 commission forensic examinations, questioned in the court of law well-known expert doctors who reported that visceral chickenpox led to imminent death. As for the argument in the appeal considering it impossible to grant amnesty in case of an appeal, the prosecutor argued that according to the amnesty act, civil appeals must be upheld in case the damage directly resulted from the crime, and in this case, the death was imminent, and it would not make any difference whether the patient was transferred an hour earlier or 23 hours later. Judge A. Petrosyan asked why the prosecutor had not drop the charges, given that he argued that there was no causal connection. In response to this question, prosecutor A. Yeghiazaryan said that the criminal case was initiated under Article 376(1) of the RA Criminal Code, where the crime consequences implied significant damage, which was viewed by the indictment as damage against the service. The judge sought to find out whether the charges were covered in the indictment in the way above. The prosecutor read out the descriptions of charges as provided in the indictment which appeared to lack any clarification of the essence of significant damage. The Defense absolutely objected to the appeal, and defendant M. Mkrtchyan’s advocate L. Poghosyan said that the amnesty was granted upon the application of his client. While his client’s guilt was not established in a court of law, out of his tiresome situation M. Mkrtchyan applied for the amnesty. Thus, the advocate requested to dismiss the appeal. M. Mikayelyan’s advocate V. Elbakyan also objected to the appeal and noted that they had been reluctant to apply for amnesty. She also added that the first instance court had reiterated that the victim in question was not a victim as such and the court should have initially dismissed the case and returned it to the Prosecutor’s Office. V. Elbakyan also asked to reject the appeal and uphold the ruling of the general jurisdiction court. The presiding judge M. Ter-Adamyan stated that he had to adjourn the hearing due to the other scheduled court hearings. M. Shushanyan, representative of the victim’s successor, asked the Court to hold the following hearing without him and the victim’s successor. Thus, the court hearing was adjourned until 3 pm, May 21, 2015.