ArmInfo. On July 6, the Criminal Court of Appeal, chaired by Judge Rubik Mkhitaryan, overturned the sentence of the person convicted in the case of Poghos Poghosyan - Aghamal Harutyunyan, and sent the case to the trial court for a new consideration.
To recall, we are talking about the case of the murder of a citizen of Georgia Poghos Poghosyan on the night of September 25, 2001. A tragic incident occurred in the <Aragast> jazz cafe after Poghosyan to said then-President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan inappropriately: "Hello, Rob." According to media reports, Poghosyan and Kocharyan have been familiar since student days. Kocharyan's guards brought Poghosyan to the toilet and began to beat him.
As already reported, the prosecutor's office of the city of Yerevan studied the decision of the court of general jurisdiction of the first instance of 2001, as well as the criminal case of the murder of Poghos Poghosyan, the statement of the representatives of the British citizen Stephen John Newton, who was in the cafe that fateful day.
According to a criminal case instituted on the grounds of a crime under Article 100 of the old Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia, an employee of the Ministry of National Security of the Republic of Armenia, Aghamal Harutyunyan, was found guilty of committing murder through negligence due to criminal negligence. In studying the case, the court found confirmed the fact that on September 25, 2001 at about 00:30 in the toilet of the Yerevan "Aragast" cafe between Harutyunyan and Poghosyan, who was intoxicated, there was a brawl, during which Poghosyan fell on his back and hit his head on the floor, as a result of which he died from a closed head injury. On February 21, 2002, the court sentenced Aghamal Harutyunyan to 2 years of imprisonment, however, the assigned punishment was not even applied conditionally in connection with the established probationary period of one year.
Meanwhile, according to the results of the study of the statement addressed to the RA Prosecutor General through representatives of Stephen John Newton, it was found that the statement contains substantial information that in fact there was a deliberate murder by a group of persons from hooligan motives.
Thus, new circumstances appeared that could prove that the convicted person in the case clearly committed a more serious crime - aggravated murder.
Based on the foregoing, the corresponding proceedings were instituted in the prosecutor's office of Yerevan and, with the order to conduct an investigation, was sent to the department for the investigation of serious crimes of the RA IC. During the proceedings, a number of actions were taken, witnesses were questioned, who confirmed the fact of beating Poghos Poghosyan by several persons. Similar testimony was given by Stephen John Newton. A forensic medical examination commission was appointed, the results of which differ significantly from the findings of the report issued earlier in the criminal case. This circumstance, coupled with other factual data acquired in the criminal case, confirms that a group of people with their hands and legs struck various parts of Poghos Poghosyan's body, especially on the head, causing a closed head injury. Based on the foregoing, at the beginning of this year, the Deputy Prosecutor General of the RA submitted a complaint to the RA Court of Appeals on reviewing and canceling the verdict of February 21, 2002 on the basis of newly discovered circumstances, as well as senting the case to the court for a new consideration.