On 19 March, Judge Vardges Sargsyan presided over the hearing on the case of former Chief of Police Vladimir Gasparyan, his former Deputy Levon Yeranosyan, Head of the Police Internal Audit Department Vardan Tunyan and Commander of Police Unit Gurgen Grigoryan..
At the beginning of the court session, Public Prosecutor Tigran Yenokyan tried to find out Levon Yeranosyan’s position regarding giving testimony, the latter replied that he was not going to give any testimony.
Prosecutor Tigran Yenokyan presented his petition, that is, to publish the pre-trial statements given by Levon Yeranosyan. The court granted the petition.
Levon Yeranosyan was interrogated 3 times. The first was on 22 February, 2019, and then on 15November, 2019, as an accused.
In 2019, Yeranosyan stated that he refused to provide position regarding the accusation and to testify regarding the allegations and the circumstances that are important to the case.
On 26 May, 2020, Yeranosyan was summoned for additional questioning.
There were other witnesses in this case, who, according to the data reported by the court, are dead, but there was a need to publish their testimonies as well.
One of the witnesses was Artur Baghdasaryan, who died on 10 December, 2020. He was the Head of the Military Police of the Ministry of Defense.
Baghdasaryan informed that he was summoned for questioning “in connection with the case of abuse of power regarding to the especially large-scale crimes by individual employees of the Ministry of Defense,.”
Servicemen of the Military Unit Khachik Badeyan (since 2001), Nelson Saroyan (since 2004), Arman Movsisyan (since 2009) being assigned to the position of military policeman of the Military Police of the Ministry of Defense, having the rank of non-commissioned officer, have not appeared for military service since the day of their appointment. Instead, they performed work that did not issue from the status of a soldier. Nelson Saroyan worked as the driver of Lyova Sargsyan, the brother of the 3rd President of the Republic of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan. Khachik Badeyan and Arman Movsisyan were Alexander Sargsyan’s bodyguards.
“According to the information I received, those servicemen did not report for military service, no official investigation was conducted, because those
servicemen submitted a report to be released from service. Based on the report, they were released from service,” Baghdasaryan had stated in his testimony.
One of the witnesses was Armen Vardanyan. He stated that he wanted his interrogation to take place with the participation of a lawyer. He was interrogated on 4 September, 2019 by the Special Investigation Service.
Roland Sargsyan testified in this case. The latter was killed in 2020 in the Republic of Artsakh by the attacks carried out by the units of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, the shots fired by the military aviation, the armored vehicles and drones.
Lawyer Alexander Kochubaev sent a motion to postpone today’s hearing, but it was rejected due to the presence of Vladimir Gasparyan’s other defense attorney.
At the end of the court session, the judge informed that regarding Armen Asryan and Arsen Galstyan, the court has addressed a corresponding letter to the police department in order to find out the possibilities of conducting an interrogation via video communications.
The next court hearing will take place on 26 March.
Mariam Shahnazaryan
