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On April 20, 2016, the RA Court of Criminal Appeals, presided by judge S. Chichoyan, resumed examination of the appeal filed by Tatevik Siradeghyan, representative of victim’s successor Murad Khachatryan and lawyer at Yerevan Office of HCA Vanadzor, against the ruling of the General Jurisdiction Court of Ararat and Vayots Dzor Marzes (Regions) of the RA dated February 18, 2016 on the case of Grisha Khachatryan’s death. Note that at the previous court hearing, the appellant party had presented the grounds of the appeal and the hearing was adjourned due to the absence of the agency responsible for the investigation.

The court hearing was attended by Tatevik Siradeghyan, representative of victim’s successor M. Khachatryan; Levon Yeghoyan, Deputy Head of the 8th Garrison Investigation Division of the General Military Investigative Department of the RA Investigative Committee, responsible for the investigation, and Anushavan Harutyunyan, Deputy Military Prosecutor of the Garrison.

At the court hearing, L. Yeghoyan and A. Harutyunyan expressed their objections to the appeal. L. Yeghoyan, responsible for the investigation, stated that in spite of the fact that the criminal proceedings were initiated on a murder, the preliminary investigation considered 3 hypotheses. As a result, both the hypothesis of committing a suicide by G. Khachatryan, and that of a murder were not substantiated; instead, the hypothesis of causing death by negligence due to breach of rules of gun handling was substantiated.

In response to the questions of the presiding judge, L. Yeghoyan mentioned that G. Khachatryan was alone at the observation post, another serviceman M. Harutyunyan stood some 30 meters away, and according to the data obtained through the materials the latter had not thoroughly washed up after the incident, and also no traces of antimony plating were found on his clothes. Apart from the above, he mentioned that the traces of antimony plating in G. Khachatryan’s palm prints exceeded the threshold. L. Yeghoyan stated that the conclusions made during the preliminary investigation also derived from the peculiarities of the crime scene. Thus, he found the appeal to be subject to dismissal for lack of merits.

A. Harutyunyan, prosecutor supervising the case, also objected to the appeal and argued that the agency responsible for the investigation had carried out full, impartial and comprehensive investigation and the ruling made by the General Jurisdiction Court was well-grounded and not subject to annulment.

Upon verifying the lack of any necessity to submit supplementary evidence, the Court retired to the deliberation room to make a ruling. By its ruling announced shortly after, the Court dismissed the appeal by upholding the ruling of the General Jurisdiction Court of First Instance of Ararat and Vayots Dzor marzes (regions) of RA.