Today the Court Sitting on Vardan Petrosyan’s Case was continued at the RA Criminal Court of Appeals.
Prosecutor Artur Sargsyan who had appealed the sentence of the First Instance Court, stated that the sentence was ungrounded and light, in particular on the grounds that the defendant did not show remorse for his action. “Vardan Petrosyan showed criminal presumption, which is the evidence of the fact that crime is more dangerous,” he said.
According to Ruben Baloyan, the representative of the victims, while making a decision, the First Instance Court should have taken into account the circumstances of the crime, the degree of guilt of the crime, the circumstances and reasons, and only then Vardan Petrosyan’s behavior, whereas Mr. Baloyan believes that those circumstances were neglected.
“The fact that the incident took place as result of Vardan Petrosyn’s exceeding the speed and talking on the cell phone while driving. The First Instance Court did not did not consider the fact that Vardan Petrosyan was not lawful, unfairly ignored the circumstance that there are 6 victim, 2 deaths and 4 injured persons,” said the advocate.
The advocate grounded his appeal with the fact that Tatevik Hakobyan was injured grievously and needs long term treatment. Also she cannot use the public transport in the duration of 1.5 or 2 years. The advocate added that if during the treatment Tatevik would suffer new incurable problems, Vardan Petrosyan will be the one who caused those.
In reply to Ruben Baloyan’s speech, the defendant’s advocate Nikolay Baghdasaryan said the First Instance Court had taken into account the hypothesis of Vardan Petrosyan talking on the phone, exceeding the speed and other circumstances and those were presented in the criminal case files.
With regard to Tatevik Hakobyan’s treatment Nikolay Baghdasaryan said that in the opinion of the experts that the girl would not be able to use the public transport during two years does not mean that she should be treated for two years in a row. Mr. Baghdasaryan also said that the girl should have passed a special examination, which should have clarified everything, but which was not done.
Arthur Hakobyan, one of the injured made a remark from place saying to Nikolay Baghdasaryan, “Behave as an Armenian man and speak truly, it’s not you that will tell us how to treat our child.”
Debates in the court continued referring the 20 thousand USD which Vardan Petrosyan’s relatives had given to the injured.
The injured Naira Hayrapetyan said that the sum which Vardan Petrosyan had given was for “Vardan’s conscience” and presented to the court the record of the meeting of parties, where according to her were presented all agreements and conversations of the parties.
The Advocate of the injured party filed a motion to delay the court sitting as he had to attend another court sitting. The injured party promised to file a motion for the new medical forensic examination at the next court sitting.
The next court sitting will take place on 5 May at 15:30.
Hermine Viarbyan
