The Prosecutor Artur Davtyan presented the appeal against the indictments made in 2009 against Vardan Jhangiryan.

The Prosecutor General’s Office reports.

The latter was found guilty by Article 316 (1) of the RA Criminal Code according to the verdict of 31 Mrach, 2009. The Court has affirmed that on 23 February, 2008, at about 11:00 pm, while disarming and apprehending armed men in the BMW X-5 car at the crossroads of Echmiadzin-Yerevan highway, near Avangard village he did not comply with the lawful requirement of a police officer carrying out their duty; drove the car in their direction and crashed into a police car, not meeting the requirements to present the firearm; damaged a policeman’s uniform, punched him in the face, causing minor bodily harm that did not have the characteristics of a health hazard.

According to the verdict, V. Jhangiryan was sentenced to three years in prison, the sentence was not conventionally imposed, and a three-year probation was applied.

The defense appealed the verdict in 2009 to the RA Criminal Court of Appeal, which rejected the appeal, upheld the verdict of the court of general jurisdiction, and V. Jhangiryan was released from the sentence imposed by amnesty. The Court of Cassation of the Republic of Armenia filed an appeal against this decision of the RA Court of Appeal in September 2009 it was returned, grounds of lack for initiating proceedings.

RA Prosecutor General’s Office has studied V. Jhangiryan’s verdict and materials of the criminal case in the light of the legal positions of ECHR judgments, domestic case law and the Court of Cassation of the Republic of Armenia in the case of Mushegh Saghatelyan v. Armenia, and other countries, and decision of the Court of Cassation of the Republic of Armenia Gagik Jhangiryan on September 18, 2019 EKD / 0134/01/08. It has been found that during these trials the fundamental violations of procedural law, judicial error, have been admitted, as a result of which the judgments adopted are unlawful and unfounded and distort the very essence of justice.

In particular, the lower courts, in substantiating Jhangiryan’s indictment, placed a heavy emphasis on the testimony of the police officers in the evidence basket and failed to properly assess that they were actively involved in the events, which casts a reasonable doubt on their testimony. The defense was not given a full opportunity to contest the credibility of his testimony effectively in a competitive trial, which resulted in a violation of the right to a fair trial guaranteed by Article 6 of the European Convention.

The factual circumstances of the case have not been properly examined and evaluated, and the criminal case lacks a sufficient combination of credible evidence that would have allowed V. Jhangiryan to have proven the facts of the crime he had committed.

Based on the aforementioned circumstances, RA Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan applied to the Court of Cassation of the Republic of Armenia regarding Vardan Jhangiryan’s 2009 case with the demand to overturn and amend judicial acts, to acknowledge his innocence in the vicious act.

Notably, the European Court in the case of Mushegh Saghatelyan v. Armenia stated that “… the unconditional approval of the police version of the events, their failure to properly address any of the applicant’s arguments and their refusal to examine the defense witnesses without proper examination. This has led to a restriction of the rights of the defense, which runs counter to the guarantees of a fair trial …”

The investigation of the 2008-2009 verdicts and the cases related to the events that took place during the 2008 presidential elections continues in the RA Prosecutor General’s Office.