Court ruling on complaints will be announced at the next hearing
11:47, May 7, 2015On May 6, 2015, the Court of General Jurisdiction of Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun administrative districts of Yerevan, RA, presided by Judge A. Khachatryan, resumed consideration of the complaints filed by Artur Sakunts, Head of the HCA Vanadzor and Pnjik Teroyan. The complaints in question challenge the decree by A. Minasyan, Special Investigator for high-profile cases at the Special Investigation Service on not initiating criminal prosecution and discontinuing the criminal proceedings. In particular, the applicants asked the court to annul the decree and submit the case to re-investigation. The trial was attended by Ani Chatinyan, representative of A. Sakunts, and the other applicant Pnjik Teroyan. The agency responsible for the proceedings did not attend the court trial; yet, as the case materials were submitted to the court, the presiding judge A. Khachatryan decided to continue the trial without A. Minasyan, Special Investigator for high-profile cases at the Special Investigation Service. A. Chatinyan presented the complaint filed by the HCA Vanadzor. The complaint contained a number of arguments in support of the improper investigation by the agency responsible for the proceedings. A. Chatinyan noted that no new evidence had been obtained after the decree on rejecting the initiation of a criminal case, and the decrees on rejecting initiation of a criminal case and criminal prosecution and on discontinuing the criminal proceedings, in general, literally repeated each other and contained the same arguments mostly relying on the testimonies of investigators. Whereas the investigator shall not show a biased approach to the evidence or consider some evidence more or less important as compared to the other until its examination under a relevant legal procedure. The complaint provided arguments in support of the procedural violations and frauds. In particular, investigator S. Mkhitaryan involved the cleaners employed by the same police department as attesting witnesses in the examination of the decoded information of the cell phone number belonging to and presented by P. Teroyan. And this fact did not receive an adequate assessment of the agency responsible for the proceedings. Moreover, it ignored that the investigator in question had regularly involved the persons above as attesting witnesses in various investigative actions, which is an indisputable fact and unacceptable in this case. Also, she mentioned that no attesting witnesses were present at the examination of the CD records, and one of the persons mentioned as an attesting witness at the examination of the records had neither been ever registered in the population register of Vanadzor city, nor received a passport of a RA citizen, and the other witness had never been registered or withdrawn from registration at the address mentioned in the records by the investigator. Yet, the agency responsible for the proceedings took no measures to find out whether the attesting witnesses had been actually involved in the investigative activities. In this case, A. Minasyan, Special Investigator for high-profile cases at the Special Investigation Service, considered only the explanations by Sasun Mkhitaryan, investigator at the Vanadzor city Taron investigation department of Lori Marz Investigation Department, RA Police General Investigation Department. Such explanation might not be objective for evident reasons. Thus, A. Chatinyan mentioned that the grounds above came to prove that the decree appealed had not resulted from a complete, impartial and thorough investigation, and therefore, asked the court to annul it and submit the case to another preliminary investigation. Applicant P. Teroyan insisted on her complaint and added that the examination of the case materials showed that one of the technical workers involved as an attesting witness had worked at the Vanadzor city Taron investigation department of Lori Marz Investigation Department, RA Police General Investigation Department, for many years first as a typist and then as a cleaner, and she could not have no interest in the case. Besides, the case materials contained an official letter from the Head of the RA Passport and Visa Department. However, investigator A. Minasyan, responsible for the case proceedings, ignored the information contained in the letter and considered only the testimonies of the investigator above. Applicant P. Teroyan and A. Chatinyan, representative of A. Sakunts, insisted on their appeals and asked the court to uphold them. The judge deemed the consideration of the appeal completed and went to the retirement room to make a ruling. The court ruling on the appeal will be announced on May 19, 2015, at 5:30 p.m.