A Case was Initiated for Throwing a Plastic Bottle but not for Beating up a Person

Recent charges by the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Prosecutor General against 20-year-old Manvel Hazroyan, (who was previously sentenced to life in prison for killing 4 and wounding 3 soldiers in the Jabrail Army Unit), are unlawful, in Lawyer Edmon Marukyan’s opinion.

The case was initiated for using violence which was not dangerous for life or health, when on August 3rd, Hazroyan threw a plastic bottle of mineral water at the Syunik Region Court of Common Jurisdiction Judge H. Davtyan, upon hearing the announcement of the life sentence verdict. 

The police officers on duty as the judicial bailiffs, and who were employees of the NKR “Shushi” Penitentiary, handcuffed Hazroyan, removed the journalists and the client’s relatives, who were participating in the hearing, and beat up Hazroyan in the presence of the judge and advocate Edmon Marukyan. They then dragged the advocate, shouted at him and tried to remove him from the courtroom. Later, defendant Hazroyan was beat as he was put into the car and taken to the penitentiary. The prosecutor’s office has left, unaddressed, the reports on the facts of beating Hazroyan and using violence against the lawyer and hindering the work of the journalists. Instead the NKR Prosecutor General has initiated a case against the RA citizen, Hazroyan, and summoned his advocate, Edmon Marukyan, to give testimony otherwise threatening to “bring him in by coercion”.

Lawyer Karen Tumanyan believes that there are several reasons why D. Gabrielyan, SIC Investigator of the NKR Special Investigative Division is not authorized to summon or invite Edmon Marukyan to NKR territory to interrogate as a witness.

First of all, Marukyan is Hazroyan’s Defense Attorney and the law prohibits interrogating a lawyer as a witness to obtain information about his defendant. Moreover the RA citizen is not obligated to give testimony to foreign law-enforcement agencies. According to Tumanyan, Investigator Gabrielyan has to appeal to the RA Special Investigation Service to conduct investigative activities with Edmon Marukyan, and the threat to bring him by coercion is unlawful and illegal.

‘Obligating a lawyer to give testimony against his own defendant that would convict him of a crime, moreover, threatening to bring him under coercion, is a clear disrespect towards all lawyers,’ states lawyer Karen Tumanyan.

Artur Sakunts, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor, on the other hand, finds the silence of the Chamber of Advocates strange. ’The Chamber of Advocates basically did not make any public statement or decision and did not publicize the act of violence against one of its members,’ he says.

Mery Aleksanyan
Source www.hra.am