Freedom of Armenians Detained in Moscow May Cost 3.5 Million Rubles

Following clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Moscow, the trial of seven out of eight Armenian citizens detained will take place on September 29 at the Nikulinsky City Court. The case against the eighth individual is being handled separately at a court in the Lyubertsy area of Moscow and is still in the preliminary investigation phase. This was reported by Armtimes.com.

The seven Armenian citizens are charged under the second part of Article 213 of the Russian Criminal Code for hooliganism (hooliganism committed by a group of people). They have accepted the charges against them. The young men, aged 23 to 27, have been in custody for two months. They had come to Moscow for seasonal work and were employed at a construction site near the "Bakinskiy Dvorik" restaurant, where they lived as well.

Upon seeing the well-known video of an attack on a BMW by Azerbaijanis, the young men were outraged, after which they learned of the attack on the "Armyanskiy Dvorik" store by Azerbaijanis, which was the last straw. They decided to take some retaliatory action and smashed the window of the "Bakinskiy Dvorik" restaurant, belonging to the Azerbaijanis with stones.

The eighth detained individual is also charged with hooliganism but does not admit guilt. On the day of the attack on the BMW, a gathering of local Armenians in the Lyubertsy area organized a procession with Armenian flags as a sign of protest. While stopped at a traffic light, a group of Azerbaijanis gathered in front of an Azerbaijani shop, yelling insults at the Armenians and the Armenian flag, leading the Armenians to exit their vehicles. The Azerbaijanis retreated into the shop and closed the door. One of the Armenian young men smashed a window of that shop with a trash can; he is a Russian citizen.

The lawyers of the accused, as well as the victims in the BMW case, Eric Ananyan and Garik Grigoryan, are being handled by the "Association of Armenian Lawyers and Attorneys of Moscow." The association's vice-president, Jean Martirosyan, told Hraparak that the preliminary investigation for the seven has concluded, a preliminary hearing has taken place, and the main trial will be on September 29.

"Our association's lawyers have generally dealt with the cases of 45 citizens related to these incidents. A large majority were released on the first day, and others were able to be released with small fines thanks to the efforts of lawyers. Unfortunately, we could not achieve such an outcome for the mentioned eight citizens. Initially, we even tried to secure house arrest for them. Many of our staff offered their apartments to the court where the young men could stay with electronic bracelets until the trial, but the court rejected it. We hope the court will consider the fact that these individuals have no prior convictions, have never been involved in such situations, and are construction workers who acted in response to their motivation to break the store window. The material damage they caused is even minimal, which has already been compensated for. The hooliganism article anticipates up to seven years of imprisonment, while the mildest punishment is a fine of about 500,000 rubles for each person," said Jean Martirosyan.

However, the critical issue is that if the court decides to release the detained youths on a fine of 500,000 rubles, they still will not be able to pay that amount. "When applying a fine as a penalty, the most crucial element is that the court must be confident that such a ruling will be enforced, meaning that the fine will be paid. For such confidence to exist, that amount must be transferred beforehand to the court's account because it is risky for a judge to make that ruling if he is not sure the fine will be paid. Otherwise, it would result in a situation where a person has committed a crime, a ruling has been made against him, but the prescribed penalty is not enforced. And if the court does not issue a ruling in favor of the fine, the money in the account will be returned to the sender. The total amount for seven people is 3.5 million rubles. To clarify, this does not mean that if we transfer this amount to the court account now, the court will necessarily rule for the fine, but it is an opportunity our defenders want to utilize, however, the money is not yet available," said Martirosyan.

According to him, the association has sent letters to various Armenians, including the Armenian Embassy in Russia, requesting that the ambassador also bring this issue to the attention of those same people, but there has been no response from anyone yet.

"I believe we all have an obligation to support these individuals, as they committed a crime involuntarily and out of patriotic feelings. Their actions, despite being criminal, served as a restrained and sobering signal to Azerbaijani hooligan elements, indicating that Armenians are not defenseless, can unite, and push back. They did not crack heads like the Azerbaijanis, but they showed their teeth, will, and dignity. Now we are obliged to help these people at all costs," concluded Mr. Martirosyan.

More details in the original source.