Selective presentation of the views of ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group members undermines the confidentiality of preliminary investigation
15:54, August 2, 2016 | News, Other news
While Artur Sakunts, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor, still does not know how many of the detained ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group members have attorneys, he emphasizes that he is ready to offer his resources for protection of their rights.
Artur Sakunts made such a statement in his interview to Armtimes.com.
In response to our question as to the lawfulness of the yesterday’s statement by the NSS and particularly the use of the term ‘terrorist’ and whether it does not undermine the confidentiality of the preliminary investigation and the presumption of innocence, Sakunts said as follows.
“The recent statement of the NSS is a political statement rather than a statement of a law enforcement agency, which means imposing a punishment on people by the logic of a merely political decision rather than based on an adequate legal assessment of their actions,” he said.
In response to our observation that Varuzhan Avetisyan states that they are prisoners of war and our question as to why they say so, given that the POW status requires 2 international entities, Sakunts said that he could not give an exact answer but anyway he drew some parallels.
“I’ll refer to a similar precedent that occurred in Northern Ireland; the Irish liberation war fighters arrested on charges of terrorist acts, demanded in custody to be declared prisoners of war. In other words, they were not terrorists but rather fighters for the independence of Northern Ireland. In fact, they succeeded in making the British Prime Minister meet them,” Sakunts said emphasizing that most likely Varuzhan Avetisyan meant this.
As for the question of whether it is lawful that the law enforcement agencies disclose interviews of the persons who, according to them, surrendered, Sakunts noted as follows:
“The police show a very primitive behavior by disclosing not only the interview of the ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group members, but also the so-called conversation with the released doctors. This action fully fits within the propaganda campaign and the presumption of innocence is undermined completely. The selective presentation of the views of ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group members results not only in undermined confidentiality of preliminary investigation but also in administration of selective justice.”