Yesterday, at the Northern Criminal Court, the Mataghis murder trial, in which enlistment servicemen Arayik Zalyan, Mousa Serobyan and Razmik Sargsyan are accused of the murder of servicemen Roman Yeghiazaryan and Hovsep Mkrtumyan at the Mataghis military base in Karabakh, once again got underway. As in the past, the defendants' attorney, Stepan Voskanyan, failed to appear in court but presiding Judge Harutyun Movsisyan, decided to continue the proceedings without him. As soon as the trial got underway, defendant Arayik Zalyan, petitioned the court in the name of the other two defendants, to have the criminal case abbreviated on the grounds that the proceedings were in violation of their right to a just trial. He attempted to substantiate this claim by citing the interpretation of the Constitutional Court according to which the court's action to send the case for further preliminary investigation took it out of the bounds of an unbiased hearing. After an adjournment and two hours of consultations the court turned down the motion and postponed the trial till February 6.