British Michael O’Brien has been imprisoned for 11 years for a crime not committed by him. He learnt law during the years in prison to prove his innocence. Currently O’Brien is in Armenia and during the interview with the Armenian journalists he stated that he had proved his innocence due to the great assistance provided by the journalists’ community.
“New evidence was found with the help of the journalists, due to which they managed to accuse the police officers of the corruption and to appeal my case.” O’Brien told that after he was pleaded not guilty the government paid a compensation for imprisoning an innocent person for 11 years. Later he started to provide assistance to those innocent people who had been wrongfully convicted.
Michael O’Brien has come to Armenia together with advocate Michael Naughton, the founder of “The Innocence Network” of the UK in Bristol University. The Network aims at identifying and correcting the fatal judicial errors.
During today’s discussion on judicial errors Michael Naughton noted why it is so difficult to release the innocent people from prison in the UK. The thing is a person’s punishment might be mitigated if he admits his crime and regrets it.
Michael O’Brien and Michael Naughton are in Armenia on the initiative of “Armenian Program of Innocence” NGO. The president of the organization, journalist Zaruhi Mejlumyan noted during the event that nowadays the most important issue in relation to reopening of the old cases is that the evidence of the cases are eliminated. But due to her consistent work the new Criminal Procedure Code provides a new article according to which the case evidence will not be eliminated.
During the event all the speakers stated that innocent people wrongly appear in prisons. They are not criminals and the stain of a criminal should be removed from them.
