Human Rights NGOs against the Illegal Actions of the Prosecutor’s Office

Three human rights organizations are going to file a new report demanding to initiate a criminal case on behalf of the one-month illegal detention of Sargis Poghosyan at Nubarashen PI. www.hra.am was informed about it by Lawyer Edmon Marukyan, the representative of Civil Society Institute, Helsinki Committee Armenia, and Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor NGOs.

The RA Citizen, Sargis Poghosyan, who was under pursuit by US law enforcement officials, was arrested at the RA Zvartnots Airport and detained in Nubarashen PI from August 5thto September 1, 2010, without an appropriate court decision.

This fact was revealed by the observers of the monitoring group of Penitentiary Institutions, who appealed to law enforcement officials to initiate a criminal case.

There was no criminal case initiated on this fact and the heads of the three NGOs appealed to the court, demanding that the RA Prosecutor General initiate a criminal case.

The Court of First Instance had rejected the claim of the three NGOs, while the RA Court of Appeals had granted it. The decision entered into force. The RA Court of Cassation returned the appeal of the RA Prosecutor General.

Thus the Court of Appeals found that keeping citizen, Sargis Poghosyan in detention, on the RA Prosecutor General’s note, was illegal, because there was not a RA court decision as prescribed by law.

The Court obligated the Prosecutor’s Office to eliminate violations against individual rights and freedoms; however the Prosecutor’s Office has not initiated anything as of this date.  

The Prosecutor’s Office gave the same response, as The Courts of First Instance and Appeals, to the second report filed by the human rights NGOs regarding the same case. 

The October 5th response of the Prosecutor’s Office, in particular, states: “As the international cooperation tofight against criminality among countries is carried out both conventionally, based on approved international legal documents (conventions, bilateral agreements, and others)  regarding the fight against criminality and by institutional means; in the ad hoc case the RA Prosecutor General relied on the existence of an international intelligence card issued on Sargis Poghosyan within the framework of international criminal policeof Interpol, which was published in the provisions of the decision by the authorized USA Court.”

Lawyer Edmon Marukyan, representative of the NGOs, insists that the detention decision by the Richmond Courthouse of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, cannot be a basis for admitting a person into a penitentiary institution in the RA, because according to point 10 of Article 141 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code the administration of the detention facility was obligatedto immediately release those who were detained without a court decision. And in this case there was no court decision.

Nelly Harutyunyan, Head of International-Legal Relations Division of the Office of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office and first class advisor of justice, stated in her response that by the 05.30.2011 decision of the Court of Appeals, the RA General Prosecutor’s Office is obligated to eliminate violations of the rights of the individual, “it is unclear which individual”. 

“If it concerns Sargis Poghosyan, then he submitted a notice on January 11, 2011 that his rights were not violated and he did not authorize anyone to act on his behalf to protect his allegedly violated rights.”

The heads of the human rights organizations and their representative, Edmon Marukyan, have clarified on different occasions that their goal is not protecting Sargis Poghosyan but preventing the obvious wrong actions of government officials, through the courts and in this case the prosecutor’s office. 

Mary Aleksanyan
Source: www.hra.am