Goris Deputy Mayor Menua Hovsepyan's Arrest Motion Hearing Postponed

Today at 22:00, the court was scheduled to consider the arrest motion for Goris Deputy Mayor Menua Hovsepyan; however, the hearing has been postponed until tomorrow at 13:00. This information was provided to Tert.am by Hovsepyan's lawyer, Armen Melkonyan. He emphasized that it was unacceptable to rush the review of the arrest motion.

The presiding judge is Martiros Mnatsakanyan. "We just left the Investigative Committee at 21:10, and five minutes later, I received a call from the court. Initially, the court informed us that the hearing would take place tomorrow at 13:00, but then ten minutes later, they called back saying it would be at 22:00 today. Furthermore, the other lawyer, Erik Aleksanyan, was not notified at all. How can we read a 780-page case in fifty minutes? We could hold a contest to see who could read this substantial case within such a short timeframe and provide a defense," he stated.

According to the lawyer, Menua Hovsepyan does not accept the charges against him. Regarding the arrest motion for other municipal employees of the Goris municipality detained today, they currently have no information about the state of defense for either Deputy Mayor Irina Yolyan or the others.

Armen Melkonyan believes that these arrests were made to facilitate the appointment of an interim mayor in Goris ahead of local elections. The lawyer mentioned that he does not wish to name individuals, but highlighted that bail is applied to those who have embezzled millions of dollars from our country and have been on the run for years, while in this case, there is a clear interest in keeping them in custody.

"A 65-year-old woman is being presented with arrest. The other woman is 41 years old, has a minor child, two children, and a deceased husband, and her 80-year-old disabled mother has also been presented with arrest. As for Irina Yolyan, I have not seen anyone more capable and committed to her work during and after the war. This is a token of gratitude directed towards Irina Yolyan. Not to mention Menua, who has four minor children; everyone knows what he did during the war, and I believe that everyone who has been in Goris has seen it," the lawyer detailed.