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Ararat Davtyan

Antalya Trafficking Trial Underway: Brother and Sister Face 8.5 and 11 Years Respectively

On September 3, 2008, Laura Azaryan was able to cross the Armenian border at Bagratashen and make her way to Batumi.

Her Turkish husband Oumit was waiting for her there and for the “cargo” she was bringing – Lilit, born in 1979, and her 8 year-old daughter. About ten day before, however, the police had been informed that Armenian girls brought to Turkey by Laura had been subject to trafficking.

Let’s remind readers that as early as May, 2008, Gagik Karapetyan, Laura’s brother, had brought 49 year-old Rima to Antalya, promising to pay the woman $500 monthly as a dishwasher in his sister’s casino-bar. Later on Laura, with her Turkish husband Oumit Ramazan Poujlu, visited Armenia and offered a similar salary to 20 year-old Irina and 23 year-old Nuneh for work as waitresses. On August 8, the two young woman left for Turkey in the company of Laura’s husband.

Armenian woman forced to “entertain” Antalya casino customers

According to facts revealed in the preliminary examination, upon arriving in Antalya, Rima was forced to work as an unpaid maid in Laura’s house. The girls were compelled to work in various casino-bars where they’d have to “entertain” the clients oftentimes to the extent of being sexually abused.

“On September 3,Oumit took me and Nuneh to customs to extend our one month tourist visa. We accidentally bumped into Laura at the Batumi customs house. She had brought Lilit and her daughter to Turkey,” Irina recounts. “Nuneh had some issue with a passport stamp and Laura decided that she’d have to take her to the Bagratashen customs house to straighten out the matter. I started to cry and told Laura that I didn’t want to work and begged that she take me to Armenian. She told me to wait until Nuneh’s problems were resolved, that we’d return to Turkey together and that she’d send me back to Armenia two days later. They left me in Georgia by myself in some woman’s house and headed off for Bagratashen.”

In court, Laura testified that Irina’s statements were false. “While at the border, my mother telephoned and said that Armineh had sent ten policemen to our house and they were still searching the hen house. I told Irina that I had a falling out with Armineh who had sent the police to our house and that I must send her to Armenia. Irina told me that she didn’t want to go, that her situation in Turkey was quite good and that she wanted to stay and make money. Even right up to my being arrested she was waiting to return to Turkey to work.”

Laura’s claims however seem to be contradicted by the fact that Irina immediately went to the police after her return to Armenia and spilled the beans. Before Laura had returned to the house in Georgia where she had left her, Irina had managed to return to Armenia with the help of Armineh’s friends in Georgia to serve as a witness in the case.

Returning from Bagratashen to Batumi and not finding Irina there, Laura had already sent Lilit and Nuneh to Antalya in the company of her husband. Laura, on the other hand, crossed the border at Bagratashen, again with no difficulty, and returned to Armenia since the Turks had again refused her an entry visa.

Laura was arrested some one month after returning to Armenia. She was found not due to the actions of law enforcement but due to the perseverance of Nuneh’s mother.

Trafficking ringleader found hiding in uncle’s house

Nuneh’s mother says, “Laura was hiding in her uncle’s house in the village of Gecherli. The police were in possession of her old passport with the last name Karapetyan. She asked for help in getting her passport back and that she would go to Turkey and send back Nuneh in good shape and that she’d pay us back for the favor. Since Nuneh was in Antalya at the time, in the clutches of Laura’s husband and brother, it never occurred to her that I would trick her; but that’s exactly what I did. We got into a taxi as if we were going to the passport division but instead we drove straight to the police, where I handed her over.”

All this time, Nuneh and Lilit were still working in Antalya nightclubs, performing belly-dances and keeping the customers “entertained”.

Lilit, a divorced woman, told investigators that she had taken her 8 year-old daughter with her to Turkey so that the neighbors wouldn’t think the worst. Her mother and Laura’s mother were friends from way back and thus she had no reason to suspect Laura’s promises of a better life and work in Turkey. She would leave her daughter in the care of Rima when she was working in Antalya.

“Nuneh told the preliminary examining board that, “I returned to Turkey since Laura had convinced me that a few days hence she’d pay me my money…Upon the urging of our parents in Armenia, Oumit and Gagik saw us off to Armenia on October 13. They had found out that Laura had been pinched in Armenia and were afraid.”

After seeing the girls off, Gagik Karapetyan and Oumit Poujlu even forced 49 year-old Rima to belly dance and “entertain” clients in their absence. She testified about this in court.

“Later Gago called my sister and said that I won’t be leaving for Armenia since Laura was still under arrest. He threatened my relatives and demanded that they go to the police and recant their testimony against Laura. All the while, Gagik and Oumit told me that they’d either burn me or sell me, and that they’d murder my family,” Rima recounts, “Then, one day in November the police came to the house and saw that I was washing dishes. They asked for my name and then asked if I was aware that a search warrant had been issued in my name in Armenia. They took me and Gagik to a special unit and deported us soon afterwards.”

Search warrant issued for Turkish husband of Armenian “Mistress”

On April 23, 2009, a criminal case was brought against Omit Ramazan Poujli and a search launched for his whereabouts. In addition, the investigation regarding the sister and brother team of Laura and Gagik by the Aragatzotn Regional Court came to a close.

At the previous trial session, Prosecutor Artur Ghambaryan motioned the court to sentence Gagik Karapetyan to 8.5 years imprisonment, requesting that the court lighten his sentence due to the fact that the accused cooperated with the investigation, had offered truthful testimony and had played a secondary, passive role in the criminal activities of the group.

The prosecutor sought an 11 year sentence for Laura Azaryan. During the trial, Laura argued that the examiner had only interrogated two witnesses and that she wasn’t able to impart her correct side of the story.

In response, Prosecutor Ghambaryan, with the permission of the court, offered up the minutes of her deposition that she gave during their face-to-face interrogation.

The prosecutor noted, “During the preliminary examination an attempt was made to conduct a face-to-face meeting but that the defense often refused to permit it and simply left the examining room several times.”

During the pre-examination, the accused availed themselves of legal services. In court, however, they assumed their own defense. At their request, Judge Souren Mnoyan scheduled the next trial session three weeks hence in order that Laura and Gagik could have sufficient time to prepare their defense statements.

P.S. – At today’s court session, Gagik Karapetyan declared that he was innocent of all charges and requested that the court show leniency on his behalf. His sister, Laura Azaryan, assumed the full brunt of responsibility for what had taken place, declared that her brother had no connection whatsoever with the case and that she was ready to “serve 15 years”, just as long as Gagik walk away a free man.

Judge Souren Mnoyan will pronounce sentence on September 9


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