Today, at Shirak Marz Court of General Jurisdiction continued the hearing of the on the accident of “Kamaz” and “Gazel” vehicles; some of the witnesses who were absent in previous court hearing gave a testimony.
Before the start of the court hearing the witness Hovhannes Harutyunyan approached advocate Liana Balyan, the defender of the accused. The latter provided him the indictment of the criminal case. H. Harutyunyan got acquainted with it. At that moment State Prosecutor A. Avetisyan noticed it and reprimanded the Defense side saying that the latter had no right to to provide the indictment or any other documents to anyone. L. Balyan asked the Prosecutor to refraine speaking in such a rude form to her, and addeding. “If you are so law-abiding why don’t you wear the prosecutor’s uniform at the hearings?” The prosecutor responded that it did not concern to the defense and the conflict ended.
After the hearing started, the witness Albert Shahnazaryan, a passenger of “Gazel” microbus was invited to the courtroom. While the court was informing the witness about his rights and responsibilities of testifying, A. Shahnazaryan asked a question to the court. “Why was I invited as a witness?” Although there is no procedural right of asking questions to the court but the court answered the question saying that he, being an eyewitness of the accident could provide some information to the court. A. Shahnazaryan said that as soon as the microbus moved he fell asleep and was informed about the incident from mass media. He did not feel the crash but lost his consciousness and was awaken from the smell of smoke, found himself lying on floor of “Gazel.” Then he got out, and left for Gyumri on a car. To the question of the prosecutor whether the car was on fire when he awoke, he replied, “No.” The prosecutor made a motion to publish the testimony given during the preliminary investigation because there was an essential difference between them. The motion was granted. According to the testimony given during the preliminary investigation Albert said that “Gazel” was on fire when he regained consciousness. Albert explained the difference in the provided testimonies by the fact that he was questioned 2 days after the accident, when he was still shocked. To the defense question why he did not write a testimony by himself he answered that he was not able to write the testimony of 2 pages as he was in bad condition..
The witness Hovhannes Harutyunyan, the Director “Imex Group” LLC’s Transport Department said that he learned about te accident from Manvel Vardanyan on the same day at about 19:30, and hurried to the place where it happened and was in place at about 21:30-22:00. Manvel Vardanyan was not there at that moment. He saw a terrific scene. Depite the layout of the cars he could not figure out the crash angle, and where the crash took place. According to the inspectors’ the “Kamaz” car was 50-55 meters far from the place of the crash and “Gazel” was in 20-25 meters from it. He said that in such situation both drivers were equally guilty because both of them should have driven so that to avoid the accident. The driver of “Kamaz” car had breached the traffic rule “Stop” and entered the crossroad. But even if he stopped he could not see anything because the scene cannot be seen because of the left-side building. He mentioned that “Kamaz” car could not drive fast because of the heavy load. The highest could have been 70-80 km/h in case of 8 ton load. But seeing the damage of “Kamaz” we can guess that “Gazel” had moved in a very high speed about 100-110 km/h because the driver could not manage to stop the car, there were no traces, the roof of the “Gazel” was damaged as well. As for being on fire, he thinks that it was resulted by the gas leak because the car “Kamaz” is made of wood and it was impossible that at least one sparkle could have reached it. After answering the detailed and crucial questions the prosecutor asked about his education. H. Harutyunyan said that he worked at the traffic department of State Engineering University of Armenia from 2004-2009; he is a PhD, Associate Professor. The mentioned education level and work experience can give the sufficient basis to make conclusions on the causes and reasons of the accident and to guesswho was guilty. Such conclusion caused the anger of the prosecutor and the victims’. H. Harutyunyan also mentioned that the LLC had provided compensation to all the victims except Hasmik Hovhannisyan, though not mentioning the certain sum.
Alina Aloyan was the next who testified. She was a passenger of the “Gazel” as well and she had got off the bus before the accident. The defense L. Balyan made a motion to invite Anahit Khalatyan director of the “Trans Akntart” LLC who was questioned as a witness as well, and grounded the motion with the fact that there were a lot of gaps in her testimony. The motion was granted.
The court session was postponed on the reasoning of the absence of other witnesses and was set on 2 July, 2015.
