Today, at the Court of General Jurisdiction of Erebuni and Nubarashen Administrative Districts the trial on the case of the former assistant judge of the same court continued under the presiding judge Artush Gabrielyan. The questioning of the victim Alina Hovhannisyan was underway.
Pursuant to the indictment Armine Karapetyan was the assistant of the judge Vladimir Grigoryan working in the same court. On 07.05.2014, she, having the intention to embezzle significant amount of property, under the pretext of bribing the judge in order for him to appoint non-custodial punishment to the defendant Gagik Yesayan (whose case is considered at the proceedings of the same court), fraudulently demanded 1500 US dollars from Alina Hovhannisyan, the mother of the accused. But Alina Hovhannisyan refused to give the money because of the lack of enough money. Armine Karapetyan tried to embezzle 1500 US dollars (equivalent to 619935 AMD) fraudulently, but didn’t managed to complete the crime due to the unforeseen circumstances.
On the judgement day, when the Court of First Instance sentenced her son to 2 years of imprisonment, she shouted right at the session hall “I didn’t give the bribe that you had demanded, that is why you sentenced my child.” But around 2.5 months after the pronunciation of this expression Alina testified against Armine Karapetyan. Previously she denied in her testimony that Armine Karapetyan had demanded money from her.
The victim said that she had lied to the investigator in her testimony for 2.5 months, because during that whole period the advocate Liana (the last name is not mentioned) and Khachik, the nephew of the Judge Vladimir Grigoryan, had been scaring her “They said that Grigoryan was a powerful man, and reminded me that my son is at prison.”
According to Alina Hovhannisyan during that period of 2.5 months they had taught her what to say to the investigator. And 2 and a half months later on the regular day of the interrogation, when the investigator turned on the recording of the sentence and listened to it all once more, she felt herself bad. The interrogation went on the next day, and she decided to tell the truth. During the interrogation, sometimes both the victim and the defendant and his advocate become out of control. And after repeating the question of the defensive side on the above mentioned fact for a few times, the victim said. “You have oppressed me together,” referring to the defendant and her advocate). The advocate answered “Are you blackmailing?” And the victim asked the defender to control herself. Both the advocate and the judge rebuked her for this expression. The defender said that she “acts thievishly” and the judge asked whether a woman should make such kind of an expression.
There was an eavesdropping record of a telephone conversation available in the case material, the victim telling that she had called to Grigoryan and said that money was not everything, had asked her to be human, and she “would not remain under his favor.” But the victim told the court that she had never talked to Vladimir Grigoryan, and had possibly confused his name during the conversation. “If I knew his number, I would call him directly.”
The victim’s interrogation is over, during the next court session on 19 November the witnesses will be questioned.
