The trial of Judge Arusyak Aleksanyan, her assistant Tamara Petrosyan, and lawyer Erik Aleksanyan continued at the Anti-Corruption Criminal Court today, February 21. The session is presided over by Judge Vahe Dolmazyan.
On October 17, 2022, the Supreme Judicial Council approved the Prosecutor General’s Office’s motions to initiate criminal prosecution against Judge Arusyak Aleksanyan and consent to her deprivation of liberty. Within the same case, lawyer Erik Aleksanyan was also charged under Article 46-441 of the Criminal Code for aiding an official in abusing power or official authority or influence conditioned by them, or exceeding authority. Arusyak Aleksanyan’s assistant Tamara Petrosyan was also charged in this case.
According to the charges, the judge made an obviously unfair judicial act and abused official powers. She granted the motion of Erik Aleksanyan, the defense lawyer of Sergey Grigoryan (known by the nickname “Faz” and considered a criminal authority), changed his preventive measure, and released him from detention for 2.5 million drams bail. Sergey Grigoryan is a friend of Arusyak Aleksanyan’s brother, Rustam Aleksanyan.
According to Iravaban.net, this session discussed defendant Erik Aleksanyan’s preventive measure in the context of his recent statement.
Recall that Aleksanyan had publicly announced that he would soon end his advocacy work.
Responding to presiding Judge Vahe Dolmazyan’s question about this announcement, Aleksanyan stated that he continues to work as a lawyer and will continue his activities for the next 8 months: “At present, this break is not temporally defined, I still have numerous criminal proceedings for which I have responsibility, I still need to complete them.”
The judge said that when the preventive measure was discussed during preliminary hearings in 2023, bail and a ban on leaving were applied to him. Later, during the main hearings, the ban on leaving was lifted, he left Armenia’s borders, then it was applied again, and finally lifted.
“During the discussion of the issue, your activities in Armenia were considered important, taking into account that you are a citizen of Ukraine, don’t have Armenian citizenship, but the fact of living and working in Armenia was significant when making a decision on the issue, and under such announcement conditions, questions may arise for the court, and in the context of these questions arising, the court should primarily expect an answer from you,” he said.
Erik Aleksanyan stated that the announcement wasn’t purposeless, and due to other circumstances, he cannot specify the duration, but he still needs to work for a long time to properly fulfill his obligations as a lawyer.
To the judge’s observation that under such conditions, he could resolve the service provision issue with clients or transfer cases to another lawyer, Aleksanyan responded that he has about 50 cases in his proceedings, which are equally important to him: “True, I don’t distinguish between criminal proceedings and have the same approach to all, but I have defendants with whom I have not only contractual legal relations but also close, warm relationships, their fate is no less important to me, I cannot treat them exclusively within the realm of contractual relations. I’ll even point out: one of the cases concerns former Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan, I find it difficult to imagine that in any situation I could leave Mr. Hovsepyan alone until the end of the criminal proceedings.”
The public prosecutor stated regarding the raised issue that since the problem is related to the fact that Erik Aleksanyan is not an Armenian citizen, it’s possible that under conditions of terminating activities he might leave the country, in this respect the criminal case and its possible connection can be evaluated within the framework of the latter’s behavior, address the issue later as well, understand the necessity of changing the preventive measure.
Note that this session also discussed defendant Erik Aleksanyan’s preventive measure; he informed the court that in May he will be absent from the country for 1 week due to a pre-planned vacation. The presiding judge made this issue a subject of discussion, stating that regardless of the announcements made at this session, it is necessary to apply a ban on leaving Armenia along with the “bail” preventive measure applied to him.
A document was also presented to the court regarding pledging real estate instead of the 25 million drams applied as an alternative preventive measure “bail” against defendant Arusyak Aleksanyan.
At this session, Arusyak Aleksanyan’s defender was also supposed to make a closing speech, but it was noted that it could take about 2 hours, and the court had other workload.
At the next session in the case, one of Arusyak Aleksanyan’s defenders will make a closing speech, which will take place on March 5.
Details in the video.
Mariam Shahnazaryan
