The examination of the appeal in the case on conducting unlawful operative-investigative activities against human rights defender Marina Poghosyan is to continue on July 25
19:09, July 14, 2018 | News, Own news
On July 11, 2018, HCA Vanadzor Chairman Artur Sakunts filed with the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction the appeal against the decision issued by the RA Special Investigation Service on September 19, 2017 about rejecting to initiate a criminal case on the basis of the report on conducting operative-investigative activities of “internal observation” against human rights defender Marina Poghosyan and on providing false information in response to the inquiry about those activities.
The Court ruled to conduct operative-investigative activities of “internal observation” against M. Poghosyan on September 14, 2015, when she was involved as a witness in a criminal case and was questioned as a witness. However, under the RA Law on Operative-investigative Activity, the aforementioned operative-investigative activities can be conducted against those who are suspected of grave or particularly grave crimes, and if it is impossible to obtain the necessary information in any other way.
M. Poghosyan found out about the operative-investigative activities of “internal observation” having been conducted against her in August 2017, during the trial of the criminal case that was unlawfully initiated against her. Incidentally, in the framework of this case, she was later acquitted in May 2018. Yet, in response to her inquiry, A. Asatryan, Acting Head of the RA Police General Department for Criminal Investigation, provided obviously false information, stating that no such activity had been carried out against her as of the inquiry date, i.e. August 17, 2017.
By the decision of September 19, 2017, the RA Special Investigation Service did not initiate a criminal case on the basis of the report of HCA Vanadzor about unlawfully conducting operative-investigative activities of “internal observation” and providing false information in response to the inquiry.
G. Margaryan, Acting Investigator of Particularly Important Cases of the RA Special Investigation Service, saw no elements of crime in the actions of the police, or in the actions of HCA Vanadzor Chairman A. Sakunts in terms of false crime reporting under Article 333 of the RA Criminal Code.
HCA Vanadzor Chairman Artur Sakunts appealed the decision of the Investigator before the RA Prosecutor General’s Office and stressed that the examination in connection with false crime reporting is a method of subjecting the human rights defender to pressure in order for the latter to avoid raising the alarm about the crime.
On October 16, 2017, Deputy Prosecutor General H. Aslanyan saw no elements of crime in carrying out operative-investigative activities or in providing false information. With regard to the first, he reaffirmed G. Margaryan’s statement about “suspected” and “a suspect” being different terms. As maintained by him, the latter is only a private manifestation of the former. A person may be suspected of a crime, but have no procedural status of a “suspect”.
As for the provision of false information in response to the inquiry, the Deputy Prosecutor General considered it to be a mistake and mentioned that the RA Police General Department for Criminal Investigation provided information only on the activities carried out by them and simply missed the abbreviation “GDCI”.
With regard to carrying out prosecution on false crime reporting against the human rights defender, he mentioned, “giving a legal assessment to the action of the person who filed a report is well-grounded and legal.”
On July 11, A. Sakunts presented before the Court the grounds and arguments for the appeal, mentioned that the above-mentioned circumstances serve as evidence for the body conducting the proceedings not carrying out a proper examination and highlighted the danger of human rights violations caused by the improper application of the RA Law on Operative-investigative Activity.
Investigator G. Margaryan and Prosecutor H. Aslanyan, who were present at the court session, objected to the appeal.
A. Sakunts also filed a motion to receive the prepared materials that the Investigator referred to in order to understand to what extent the body conducting the proceedings made efforts at the stage of preparing the materials.
The motion was upheld. The examination of the appeal is to continue at 4.00 pm on July 25, 2018.
Photographs and video by Veles NGO