On 19 January, the trial in the case of Judge Arusyak Aleksanyan, her assistant Tamara Petrosyan and Lawyer Erik Aleksanyan was continued in the Anti-Corruption Court. Judge Vahe Dolmazyan chaired the session.
On 17 October, 2022, the Supreme Judicial Council approved the petitions of the General Prosecutor’s Office regarding the initiation of criminal prosecution against Judge Arusyak Aleksanyan and provided consent to deprivation of liberty. Within the framework of the same case, the lawyer Erik Aleksanyan was also charged under Article 46-441 of the Criminal Code, that is, he assisted an official in abusing office or official powers or the influence caused by them or exceeding the powers. In the framework of this case, Arusyak Aleksanyan’s assistant Tamara Petrosyan was also charged.
According to the accusation, the judge is accused of making an obviously unjust court act and abusing official powers. She satisfied the petition of Erik Aleksanyan, the defense attorney of Sergey Grigoryan, who is known as “Faz”, by changing the measure of restrain and releasing him from custody for a bail of 2.5 million drams. According to the prosecution, Sergey Grigoryan is a friend of Arusyak Aleksanyan’s brother, Rustam Aleksanyan.
The defendants do not accept the charges against them.
According to Iravaban.net, during today’s court session, Maria Petrosyan, the first witness in the case, was questioned. She was the Acting Head of the Office
of the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction during the events that took place.
According to the prosecution, Arusyak Aleksanyan, during her days on duty, urged Erik Aleksanyan to submit several petitions to the court at the same time about replacing the detention with another preventive measure during her duty days. In this way, by creating an artificial workload for the judges, ensuring the increase of the probability of assigning one of the petitions to her. The lawyer learned from the judge about the duty schedule of the judges, on 12 and 17 September he submitted 2 petitions to the court, expecting that one of them would be assigned to Arusyak Aleksanyan. One of them was examined by Judge Armen Shiroyan and rejected. On 17 September, the lawyer presented a new petition to the court through lawyer Zhirayr Gharagyozyan. The Acting Chairman of the Court, Gagik Poghosyan, assigned it to Arusyak Aleksayan, but on the same day, Poghosyan re-assigned it to Armen Shiroyan, taking into account the fact that the other motions regarding Sergey Grigoryan were examined by Shiroyan.
Maria Petrosyan is the person through whom the assigning and re-assigning took place. She mentioned that she received the petition and sent it to Gagik Poghosyan, after which the latter signed it, and further the witness sent it to “Ajapnyak 1” residence of the court. About 10 minutes later, Poghosyan called the witness and said that there was a mistake in one of the 2 aasibned sheets sent, and asked her to call the residence and withdraw the petitions. The witness called and informed the employee on duty about it. “The Chairman of the Court made changes, sent me the assignment, and I forwarded it to the “Ajapnyak 1″ residence.”
At that time, Sona Danielyan and Naira Petrosyan were on duty at the residence. The witness stated that she contacted Naira and asked to withdraw the petitions
if they were handed over to the judge’s staff. “After re-assigning, I did not perform any other actions with these petitions. Both petitions were addressed to Arusyak Aleksanyan, both were sent back, one was changed, the other remained the same.”
Gagik Poghosyan re-assigned the petition regarding Sergey Grigoryan to Armen Shiroyan, as the latter had examined the previous petition in that case. The other petition, which was asssigned to Arusyak Aleksanyan, was examined by another judge as well. However, in this case, the judge who examined the case was on vacation and it was handed over to Judge Aleksanyan.
“I informed the guards of the “Ajapnyak 1″ residence that I will send a new motion and after that I did not talk to them about that motion. I sent the 2nd assignments at the moment of receiving it. After 3 or 4 days, Gagik Poghosyan asked whether the sent petition had reached the residence or not. It turned out that the petition regarding Sergey Grigoryan did not reach the residence,” the witness informed the court, assuring that she herself had sent those and she did not know why they did not arrive. In addition, Maria Petrosyan said that if the assignments had not arrived, the employees should have informed her. She also claimed that she had not talked about it with her colleagues at the residence.
After this statement, the Public Prosecutor said that he has no more questions, but he will make a motion.
Defendant Erik Aleksanyan continued to ask questions to the witness and the first question was “don’t you have anything to add?” Maria Petrosyan gave a
negative answer. Then Aleksanyan read the letter sent by Gagik Poghosyan to the NSS Department, in which the latter stated that the assignment did not reach the residence because, perhaps, the employee was absent due to heavy workload.
– Are you this mentioned employee, Mrs. Petrosyan? Did you talk to Mr. Poghosyan?
– I cannot say who Mr. Poghosyan meant.
– Are you the office employee who is obliged to send the electronic signature sheet?
– It is assumed, I can’t say.
Erik Aleksanyan raised the same question several times. Presiding Judge Vahe Dolmazyan described this as pressure. The defendant claimed that he has the opportunity to ask direct and cross-questions. “I want to understand where pressure here is?”
The judge explained that the pressure was asking the same question for 7 times.
In any case, the witness told the court that she did not hear anything from Gagik Poghosyan about her failure. “I was very sure that I sent it.”
– Did you have such a conversation with Gagik Poghosyan? Did you say that you may have failed because of the workload? If not, is Mr. Poghosyan lying in this note or not?
– Mr. Poghosyan is not lying. He himself asked me whether I had sent it or not and told me to check and tell him. I also said that it was not left and I had informed about it. I do not remember now whether Mr. Poghosyan said it or not.
– But you claim that Mr. Poghosyan is not lying.
– I insist on what I said. And I do not remember that.
Erik Aleksanyan continued, but the prosecutor objected to the questions several times..
The defendant inquired whether the witness is a lawyer by profession or not and how long she has been working at the court. Maria Petrosyan said that she is a lawyer and has been working in the court since 2009.
– Have you dealt with normative legal acts in the course of your work,? Do you know what a normative legal act is?
– Why do you ask such questions? The question is not clear to me.
– Let me reword it, honorable court. Okay, you didn’t understand the normative legal act, do you know what the law is?
The prosecutor objected. He mentioned that he patiently listened to the questions of the defense side, but he got the impression that the questions of the 3rd year final examination of the syudents were being asked.
“The questioning has nothing to do not only with the accusation, but also with the scope of the investigation. Mr. Aleksanyan’s questioning in addition to being not related to the accusation, they contain signs of being skeptical about the professional abilities of the witness. This is a unique means of psychological influence,” Armen Gevorgyan said.
Vahe Dolmazyan removed the question. Erik Aleksanyan objected to the actions of the Presiding Judge.
In essence, the defense side was trying to reveal that Maria Petrosyan failed in her work, she was afraid of the consequences and that is why she did not reveal the details.
During the questioning, the witness also claimed that Arusyak Aleksanyan was obliged to return the petition if she saw that the previous petition regarding Sergey Grigoryan was examined by Armen Shiroyan.
The detained judge also asked the witness questions. She tried to find out why the same judge should examine the motions presented in the case. Maria Petrosyan could not refer to a legal act. She only mentioned that it was accepted that way, according to the “regulations”.
Both the defense and prosecution sides had seen contradictions in the witness’s testimony in court and to the preliminary investigation body. She claimed in the court that she did not have a conversation with the employees of the “Ajapnyak 1” residence after the reassigning, but she told the investigator that she called Naira Petrosyan.
The witness stated that a long time has passed, she does not remember well the events that happened more than a year ago. She confirmed that she had spoken with the employee of the residence, she remembered that.
“Mrs. Petrosyan, well, do you remember for sure that you sent the re-assignment to the “Ajapnyak 1″ residence, in that format you said for sure that you did not talk to Naira, but now you say yes, well, it is possible. Your testimony was read, you immediately said: I remember. Is it possible that you also remember wrongly that you sent the re-assignment sheet?” Erik Aleksanyan asked.
The witness replied that she remembers sending the sheet, to which Aleksanyan responded: “Hey, how did it turn out?”
The judge made a reprimand, the defendant apologized and said that “it was an outburst of emotion”.
At the end of the session, Arusyak Aleksanyan’s lawyer, Andranik Manukyan drew attention to the fact that the witness’s interrogation showed that the motion to apply an alternative preventive measure instead of arrest was not subject to immediate examination.
“The circumstance, whether the reassignment has reached the court or not, acquires secondary, even tertiary significance. If this had happened and Arusyak Aleksanyan had returned the petition, I would then have accused her of abuse of official powers,” Manukyan said.
The 4-hour interrogation of the witness ended. The 2nd witness presented to the court will be interrogated on another day.
The next court session will be held on January 29.
Details in the video.
Yevgenya Hambardzumyan
