The defense claims that a violation of investigative jurisdiction has occurred: Court hearing in the case of Gevorg Altunyan and 4 other individuals

On July 15, a hearing took place in the Anti-Corruption Criminal Court regarding the case of TV host, commentator, and former head of the RA Ministry of Defense’s Information and Public Relations Department Gevorg Altunyan and 4 other individuals. The presiding judge is Vardges Stepanyan.

The other defendants in the case are Karo Poghosyan, Arthur Avagyan, Artavazd Baghdasaryan, and Suren Aloyan (founder of Dasaran.am and Koreez educational programs).

Must be reminded that back in 2023, Gevorg Altunyan and the mentioned 4 individuals were charged with embezzling 106 million 300 thousand drams from the state by including false information in documents as a result of the RA Ministry of Defense procurement process, and they have not accepted this charge.

Gevorg Altunyan has been charged in this case under the following points:

  • Being an official exercising functions that create rights, obligations or responsibilities on behalf of the RA Ministry of Defense – the head of the Ministry of Defense’s Information and Public Relations Department, using his official position and the influence conditioned by it, with the assistance of Suren Aloyan, director of the “New Generation School” public organization and owner of the dasaran.am trademark, Artavazd Baghdasaryan, director of “LG Media” LLC, Karo Poghosyan, head of the VTA division of the RA Ministry of Defense’s Information and Public Relations Department, and Arthur Avagyan, chief specialist of the PR division of the same department, with a single unified intent, within the framework of procurement processes under the codes of contracts concluded between the RA Ministry of Defense and “LG Media” LLC on September 2, 2019,
  • On March 9, 2020, and April 27, 2021, compiled and put into circulation false delivery-acceptance protocols, false invoices-certificates, false acts that are official documents, and using his official position, squandered from the state budget in 2019, 2020, and 2021 a total of 106,300,000 AMD in particularly large amounts, as well as in the same procurement processes incited Karo Poghosyan and Arthur Avagyan to compile and put into circulation false positive conclusions regarding the results of the execution of the contract or part of it, which are official documents.

According to Iravaban.net, at this hearing, Levon Sahakyan, advocate for defendants Suren Aloyan and Artavazd Baghdasaryan, expressed his position regarding the charges and termination of criminal prosecution, emphasizing in his speech the improper procedure for initiating criminal proceedings and the violation of investigative jurisdiction.

The first motion concerned the fact that the criminal proceedings were initiated on June 9, 2023, under Article 258, Part 3, Point 3 of the Criminal Code, the investigation was carried out by the Investigative Committee, but it should have been carried out by the Anti-Corruption Committee.

According to Sahakyan, the protocol on initiating criminal proceedings, the source of which is not a report but information contained in an expert’s conclusion during criminal proceedings, and data obtained as a result of procedural actions performed thereafter, cannot be sufficient for initiating proceedings.

“Therefore, the criminal proceedings have been initiated at this moment based on information obtained during criminal proceedings, and these cannot serve as a proper source for initiating the same criminal proceedings. For this reason too, the criminal prosecution must be terminated,” he said.

Within the framework of the next motion, the parties discussed the issue of changing investigative jurisdiction by the Prosecutor General.

The public prosecutor stated that the Prosecutor General has exclusive authority to transfer criminal proceedings being investigated in one body to another body, thereby not adding to the powers, and accordingly, there is no violation.

Levon Sahakyan said that if the current legislative regulations allow performing this action, at that time the latter did not have such authority: “At that time, this authority was not given to the Prosecutor General, and was given only to change exclusively in cases when it is as a last resort, and now we must assess whether this was as a last resort or not.”

The advocate again emphasized that the entire proceedings were carried out by Investigative Committee investigators, while all of this should have been carried out by Anti-Corruption Committee investigators. Therefore, the information obtained through the preliminary investigation was received by an improper subject.

The advocate’s other motion concerned giving an instruction to make a correction in the protocol of initiating criminal proceedings. In addition, he also noted that the case was not submitted to the court within the established deadline, which is grounds for terminating the criminal prosecution against all defendants.

One of the advocates, being burdened with another hearing, requested to postpone the hearing. The court did not make a decision on the 3 motions discussed, noting that discussion of one motion has not yet been carried out, and for that reason a decision will be made at the next hearing.

The next court hearing in the case will take place on August 15.

Mariam Shahnazaryan

 

Iravaban.net

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