Alexander Kochubayev addressed the violations of investigative jurisdiction, noting that a motion was submitted to the court of first instance regarding this, was postponed, not discussed, and the court didn’t address this issue in its verdict.

The prosecution has formed a position regarding the appeal that the legislator has directly endowed the prosecutor with the exclusive authority to take any criminal case from one preliminary investigation body and transfer it to another

“The prosecutor has acknowledged that there is an inconsistency between Articles 53 and 190, but concluded that Article 53 was a more general norm, referring to the collision rule in the Law on Normative Legal Acts, concluding that Article 53 should be applied, where the prosecutor had unrestricted discretionary power to change investigative jurisdiction.”

According to Point 3 of Part 2 of Article 53 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code, while exercising procedural supervision over preliminary investigation, the prosecutor’s exclusive authority is to transfer a criminal case from one preliminary investigation body to another as defined by Article 190 of this Code, to ensure comprehensive, complete and objective investigation.

According to Kochubayev, the two articles cannot contradict each other, because the semantic interpretation of the referenced article implies that the prosecutor can deviate from the rule of investigative jurisdiction on grounds provided by Article 190 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code.

“The systematic analysis of the same Articles 53 and 190 implies that investigative jurisdiction can be changed not by the whim of the Prosecutor General or deputy, but if the investigation by another preliminary body carries risks, if violations have been completely allowed that call into question the comprehensiveness and objectivity of further investigation of the case,” he said.

He insisted that in the absence of obtaining other essential evidence, all evidence collected and obtained in the NSS is inadmissible, as they were obtained by an improper subject.

The operational intelligence measures and their results were obtained with gross violations of the RA Law “On Operational Intelligence Activities” and the Criminal Procedure Code.

What counterarguments did the defense present regarding the violation of investigative jurisdiction and operational intelligence measures?

• Article 190 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code clearly defines the cases and procedure when the prosecutor can change investigative jurisdiction. According to this rule of investigative jurisdiction, the preliminary investigation of Vahagn Vermishyan’s case should have been conducted exclusively by investigators of the Anti-Corruption Committee.
• The investigative jurisdiction was changed in violation of the general conditions of preliminary investigation provided by the Criminal Procedure Code, which makes all obtained evidence inadmissible, as the procedural requirement of proper subject for obtaining evidence has been violated.
• Articles 34 and 36 of the Law “On Operational Intelligence Activities” clearly distinguish between the head of operational unit and the head of body conducting operational intelligence activities. No counter-argument was presented against this.
• The head of the unit submits the decision on conducting operational intelligence measure and the motion regarding applying to court for conducting the operational intelligence measure. The decision and attached materials are submitted to court by the head of the body conducting operational intelligence activities in the manner prescribed by the Criminal Procedure Code.

Vahagn Vermishyan doesn’t plead guilty to any episodes of the charges and demands acquittal.

Details are in the video.