As we had early reported, the trial of the "March 1st Seven" got underway again at the Shengavit Court of First Instance. Judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan declared a 30 minute recess and retired to chambers to review the motion submitted by defense attorney Hovik Arsenyan that called for the judge to recuse himself. The judge then reappeared and declared that the motion had been rejected. The self-recusal motion presented by attorney G. Aroustamyan was also rejected. The atttorney brought forth a series of alleged violations to substantiate the motion by the judge singled out only three, considering that the others had already been presented by Stepan Voskanyan, the attorney for Grigor Voskerchyan. The judge overlooked the claim of the attorneys that each of the motions specifically referred to the individual defendant and not to all seven individuals on trial. Judge Martirosyan focused his attention on three points - that all the petitions/complaints made by defense were absent in the criminal case, that the trial had been postponed for unwarranted and unreasonable durations (14 days on two occasions), and that the defense hadn't been made aware of the fact that Koryun Piloyan had assumed the role of supervisor of the criminal case. Attorney Liparit Simonyan particularly noted that some of the sanctions to remove the defendants from the courtroom were illegal. he noted the example that when defendant Shant Harutyunyan made some statements laced with curses the other six defendants were also removed from the courtroom as a result. Once, after a ten minute recess, the judge returned and the motion presented by G. Aroustamyan for the judge's recusal was debated after which another recess, this time for one hour, was declared. After the recess the judge denied the motion. During the trial, the floor was given to the defendants to have their say. Shant Harutyunyan declared that his motion to have his case separated from that of the seven hadn't been discussed at any of the preceding sessions. Alexander Arzumanian also reminded the court that his motion to receive clarification regarding the judge's decision to remove the press from the courtroom also hadn't been debated. In the end, all the defendants expressed the opinion that the trial was a sham and that the charges levied against them were baseless. The next of kin representing the injured parties requested that their attorneys be included in the court proceedings so that they could have the opportunity to express their views and present motions, but the judge, pointing to the demands of the criminal court calendar, stated that their turn would come after the motions made by the defense. An interesting incident occurred during the session when one of the prosecutors left the courtroom without the court's permission. The defendants protested the fact that the court didn't penalize the prosecution for such disrespectful behavior. Judge Martirosyan then explained that, "The prosecution still hadn't been officially brought into the case." His response elicited stares of amazement by the defendants and defense team members. Following this was the motion brought by S. Sirunyan's attorney Varduhi Elbakyan for the judge to recuse himself. Judge Martirosyan again called for a one hour recess to make a decision and returned to deny the motion on the same grounds as before. The defense team again reminded the court about the illegality of removing reporters from the courtroom. Furthermore, the defendants demanded that the court safeguard the security of the relatives during the trial sessions. Judge Martirosyan then recessed the trial till tomorrow, Friday 27, at 1:00 pm.