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The court trial of Samvel Diloyan, Artak and Aren Veranyans, accused of advocate Samvel Sharbatyan’s murder, who was killed in “Mush” restaurant over a year ago is underway at Lori Region Court of First Instance, presided by Judge Narine Hovakimyan. Ruben Hakobyan, advocate of Samvel Diloyan and Aren Veranyan, challenged to accusing prosecutor Ashot Grigoryan in the court.

Artak Veranyan’s advocate Mher Datyan also joined the challenge. Advocate Ruben Hakobyan noted that neither accusing prosecutor Ashot Grigoryan, nor any other prosecutor from Lori Region Prosecutor’s Office could participate in the proceedings over this criminal case as an accusing party. “Getting familiarized with even one document of the criminal case and the accusatory verdict, it becomes apparent that the pre-trial proceedings of the criminal case were coupled with numerous crucial and minor breaches of criminal procedure code as well as with evident violation of the pecuniary right.

During that period, before sending the criminal case to the court, oversight conducting prosecutor didn’t in any way respond to the violations of the inquest, investigative and trial conducting bodies. The principles of identification, fair trial of the case, presumption of innocence, free assessment of proofs and others have been violated, to which I will thoroughly address separately in the stage of publication of documents”, stated the advocate. He noticed that the preliminary investigation body, naturally with the permission of the prosecutor’s office, failed to ensure the right to counter-claim of its defendants, moreover, failed for 5 months to carry out confrontation in case of one of the incident witnesses until the latter, to their conviction, left Armenia through the help of the accusing party. “The line of illegalities can continue for long and all of that was carried out under the close control of accusing Grigoryan”.

He violations, omissions, and illegalities during the preliminary investigation, the cases of failing to respond to them by the judicial management conducting prosecutor justify what principle the prosecutor’s office and the accusing party were guided by upon the administration of judicial management and prosecutorial control.

The aforementioned approaches of Lori Region Prosecutor’s office give rise to reasonable suspicion of the defense party regarding the impartiality in relation to accused Samvel Diloyan and Aren Veranyan over the current criminal case. Such a disposition excludes the further participation of accusing Grigoryan and any other prosecutor from the Lori Region Prosecutor’s office in the proceedings of the current criminal case as an accusing party”, stated advocate Ruben Hakobyan.

Representative of the victim’s legal successor Artur Sakunts didn’t object to the advocate’s challenge leaving its approval at the court’s discretion. “If the Court finds that the grounds presented by the defense party correspond in terms of the challenge and decides that such violations have occurred, I cannot object”, noted the human rights activist in his speech.   Accusing Prosecutor Ashot Grigoryan requested extension time from the court to properly respond to the advocate’s challenge.

The next court trial is scheduled for October 10.