Defense Attorneys Request Recusal of Prosecutor in Arsen Ghukasian Case

The defense team today requested the recusal of prosecutor Vazgen Rustamyan in the case of Arsen Ghukasian, the uncle of missing soldier Sargis Ghukasian. This was announced in an interview with Sputnik Armenia by defense attorney Tatevik Sogoyan.

According to her, several grounds were presented for the recusal. The first is that the case has not been fully examined. Primarily, when the defense attorneys submitted a report on the crime, the prosecutor refused to initiate proceedings, after which the defense team filed a complaint that was upheld.

This concerns the incident that occurred near the Ministry of Defense on September 29, when there was a scuffle between the relatives of the missing soldiers and the military police officers.

“As a result of the appeal, we now have a new criminal case related to allegedly abusing their positions by a group of officials. This means that what we were saying is true—the provocation actually came from the military police, and the prosecutor was unwilling to initiate proceedings,” Sogoyan explained, emphasizing that the prosecutor displayed a biased stance.