Armen Gevorgyan Recognized as Victim

Former Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia and member of the "Hayastan" faction, Armen Gevorgyan, has been recognized as a victim in connection with the criminal case regarding the prohibition of crossing the border. This was announced by lawyer Erik Aleksanyan in an interview with "Factinfo."

As previously reported, a crime report was submitted to the Attorney General of Armenia two years ago regarding the actions of the officers of the Criminal Investigation Department of the National Police, demanding a legal assessment of their actions related to Gevorgyan's inability to cross the state border. However, the Attorney General's office and subsequently the first instance court found that the report was abstract and did not contain specific data related to the signs of a crime.

Against the decision of the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction, Armen Gevorgyan's lawyer filed an appeal, which was upheld on February 18, 2020. The prosecuting body was obliged to eliminate the violation of Gevorgyan's rights. Attorney General Arthur Davtyan filed a cassation complaint against the appellate court's decision, which was not accepted for review.

The appellate court’s decision has entered into legal force, and thus the Special Investigative Service (SIS) was obliged to prepare materials to determine whether there were signs of a crime in the actions of the police officers who prohibited Gevorgyan from crossing the border.

However, the SIS investigator decided to refuse the initiation of a criminal case, justifying that the police allegedly acted in accordance with the government’s decision, according to which the restriction entered in the system regarding a person's right to free movement can only be lifted if there is a decision to lift the measure from the prosecuting body.

This decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case was challenged in court. The court upheld the lawyer's complaint, leading to the subsequent initiation of a criminal case under Article 308 of the RA Criminal Code, on the grounds of abuse of official powers.

It has been revealed, however, that the pre-trial body decided to terminate the proceedings of the initiated criminal case due to the absence of corpus delicti, thus not granting Gevorgyan the status of a victim, which according to his lawyer, violated Gevorgyan's right to a fair trial. Aleksanyan noted that an appeal against the termination decision was filed, which was accepted by the prosecutor, and the investigation was resumed.

Within the framework of the reopened proceedings, Armen Gevorgyan was recognized as a victim just the day before. Furthermore, the prosecuting body is also obligated to interrogate the officers of the NSS and the Police of Armenia who were responsible for removing and adding data from the E-Government Sectoral Information System.