ArmInfo. The court of general jurisdiction of Yerevan for the fourth time again rejected the request for the arrest of the former head of the Investigative Team Vahagn Harutyunyan in the case of March 1, 2008. Harutunyan's lawyer, Mihran Poghosyan, wrote about this on his Facebook page.
Vahagn Harutyunyan, a year ago, was prosecuted as a defendant in the "March 1" case for falsifying evidence. The former head of the bloody March 2008 Investigative Team was initially charged with falsifying important evidence in the March 1 case in order to hide the fact that the armed forces participated in the March 1 events. And already on December 26, the Special Investigation Service (SIS) stated that it had supplemented the charge and Harutyunyan was also accused of abuse of authority, which led to negligent grave consequences, and abuse of office inherent in violence.
First, the court decided to arrest Harutyunyan, after which the Court of Appeal quashed the decision. But on December 30, a court of general jurisdiction granted the application of the SIS and issued a decision on the arrest of Harutyunyan, he was put on the wanted list. On February 6, the Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the first instance court to arrest Vahagn Harutyunyan and sent the case to the same court for a new consideration.
It should be noted that even before the case was brought as the accused, Harutyunyan left for Moscow last summer. In January of this year, in an interview with RFE/RL's Armenian service, he said that he was not going to return to Armenia, since he had not completed treatment in Moscow. Harutyunyan considers the charges against him trumped up, claiming that he is being persecuted.