Those Missiles Were Fired During the War: Yerem Sargsyan

On January 20, a petition was submitted to replace the detention of former Minister of Defense David Tonoyan with a personal guarantee. Tonoyan is being guaranteed by members of the National Assembly's Civil Contract faction: Kristine Poghosyan, Vilen Gabrielyan, known by the nickname "Boat Rowing," and Aram Zaveni Sargsyan.

At the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction, under the presidency of Judge Manvel Shahverdyan, the issue of preventive measures for all defendants was discussed yesterday, except for Stepan Galstyan, whose preventive measure issue is currently being heard, and the session began at 11:00 AM.

In this case, David Tonoyan, Stepan Galstyan, Avetik Muradyan, David Galstyan, and Artyom Hambaryan are in custody.

“During today’s session, the defense presented justifications indicating that the defendants should be released, as there are currently no grounds for holding them in custody. The prosecutors also presented their justifications shortly ago, explaining why they believe the grounds for detention remain valid. The issue is that we are trying to obtain a serious justification, requesting information on why they think that way, and this applies to each defendant's preventive measure. Indeed, their justifications are very abstract, only stating that the defendants could influence the case if they were at liberty. In reality, there is no issue regarding influencing the case because the preliminary investigation has been completed, and the evidence collection phase, of course, has also ended. At this point, to assert that you could hold any document would simply be considered absurd. Dear colleagues, the presumption of innocence exists. No one can claim that a crime has been committed. They said missiles are not fired, they are unusable, but I inform you that they were fired during the war; they were fired and were functional. No one can deny that, and they are trying to claim now that they were of poor quality. An objective investigation must be carried out to understand this, but detention is not necessary in this case. Let these people be free, let the investigation continue, and we all can see what has happened. Yes, a petition has been submitted to change the preventive measure for David Tonoyan, and it would be very unclear if this petition is rejected. It is expected that yes, the court will go into deliberation to make a decision today,” said Avetik Muradyan's lawyer Yerem Sargsyan in a conversation with journalists outside the court building recently.