A Yerevan court today released Artur Soghomonyan, a member of the Sasna Dzrer armed group now being tried for the seizure of a Yerevan police building in 2016, from detention while the court case proceeds.
A Yerevan court today freed Sasna Dzrer defendant Aram Manoukyan from detention while his trial continues after nine MPs provided the court with personal guarantees that Manoukyan would not flee prosecution if released.
The nine MPs – two from the Yelk Alliance and seven from the Tsarukyan Alliance – provided the court with personal guarantees that Manoukyan would not flee prosecution if released.
Hakobyan’s lawyer, Tigran Yegoryan, claimed that his client had serious health issues that didn’t allow him to be jailed while the trial continues.
Vardanyan’s public defender, Anoush Mkhitaryan, petitioned the court to lift her client’s detention, claiming that he suffered from chronic bronchitis.
One student asked why the rector allowed police to enter the university and detain peaceful protesters. Rector Simonyan responded that it was a security measure and that the doors of the university must remain open.
A Yerevan judge today said that Garo Yegnukian, who’s been held in pre-trial detention in Armenia since July 2016, can be released if 10 million drams ($20,700) in bail are paid.
Supporters of the Sasna Dzrer defendants now on trial in Yerevan continue to block traffic on Arshakunyats Avenue, demanding that the courts release them from detention as their court cases proceed.
Khachatryan is charged with hindering the actions of law enforcement by remaining near the seized police building and staying in telephone contact with Sasna Dzrer members inside, feeding them reports of what was happening.
Arayik Khandoyan and Ashot Petrosyan, two Sasna Dzrer members now on trial for the seizure of a Yerevan police station in the summer of 2016, have been on hunger strike for seven days now, demanding a general amnesty for all political prisoners in Armenia.
Judge Arshak Vardanyan today decided to keep eleven defendants in the Sasna Dzrer case in pre-trial detention.
At today's trial, Judge Vardan Grigoryan made a decision to release Andreas Ghukasyan from pre-trial detention.
Students have gone on strike at Yerevan’s the Khachatur Abovyan State Pedagogical University in Yerevan to protest yesterday’s National Assembly election rejecting Nikol Pashinyan’s candidacy for prime minister.
Anti-government protesters in Noyemberyan have blocked their section of the highway leading to the Georgian border.
People are said to have blocked the streets leading to the police station in Yerevan’s Shengavit District, where detained protest leaders Nikol Pashinyan, Ararat Mirzoyan and Sasun Mikayelyan are being kept.
Anti-government protesters shut down traffic on the Noyemberyan-Bagratashen roadway for one hour today before Tavoush Provincial Governor Hovik Abovyan arrived on the scene, demanding that the protesters disperse.
Ghukasyan’s defense attorney Karen Mezhlumyan reported the news about his client who was being held, alone, in a Nubarashen cell.
Ohanyan, who had missed the last two court dates due to an undisclosed illness, was stripped of his judicial powers by President Sargsyan on March 14.
Garo Yegnukian, a defendant in the ongoing Sasna Dzrer trial in Yerevan, was rushed to hospital today even before the court session got underway.
“I saw guys with truncheons; around ten guys. They removed the clubs hidden in their clothes,” said Tigran Mkrtchyan, who witnessed the clashes between demonstrators and cops on July 29, 2106 while on the way to his uncle’s house.
Today’s trial of Harutyun Torosyan, Hrayr Isakhanyan, Andranik Kyoseyan and Yedvard Zeytounyan, accused of public disorder and physically assaulting police during the 2016 Sari Tagh demonstrations in Yerevan, had to be postponed yet again since State Prosecutor Gevorg Gevoryan failed to appear in court.
Declaring that the whole world was watching, Martiros Hakobyan, now on trial in Yerevan for seizing a police station in the summer of 2016, stood in the courtroom and said that he was ready to be judged for what he had done, so long as the trial was conducted freely and fairly.
At today’s trial at Yerevan's Avan and Nor Nork Administrative Court, defendant Armen Lamparyan declared that he was boycotting the session to show solidarity with two other Sasna Dzrer defendants (Armen Bilyan and Smbat Barseghyan) who’ve been on hunger strike.
Children being treated at the Yoleyan Hematology Center in Yerevan shared their New Year wishes with Hetq.
Five lawyers in one of the Sasna Dzrer trial underway in Yerevan staged a symbolic ten-minute strike today court to protest a bill the parliament passed yesterday allowing attorneys charged with improper conduct to be fined 100,000 drams instead of the current policy of reprimanding them.
Shushanyan then argued that the prosecution’s charges against the defendants were general in nature, and called on the court to have the charges modified so that each defendant was accused with a specific set of charges.
Defendants in one of the three Sasna Dzrer trials underway in Yerevan declared in court today that the charges levied against them (the July 2016 armed seizure of a Yerevan police station and hostage taking) were incorrect and unacceptable.
Ashot Sukiasyan, a businessman found guilty of fraud and sentenced to sixteen years in an offshore scandal that rocked Armenian in 2013, has taken his case to the appeals court to have the original verdict overturned.
Police Inspector Vilen Hambardzumyan, a prosecution witness in the Sari Tagh trial in Yerevan, today testified that local residents failed to heed his instructions to remain in their homes, and instead, threw stones at the police.
The Court of Appeals in Armenia is now hearing a lawsuit filed by the Investigative Journalists NGO (the publisher of Hetq) to overturn a lower court’s decision absolving a senior investigator at the Special Investigative Service (SIS) from any wrongdoing when he denied handing over copies of a decision of the SIS to drop its criminal investigation into the offshore business interests of Mihran Poghosyan, a former head of the Armenia’s...
At today’s court session in the case of Karen Vanoyan and Sargis Arabajyan, charged with physically assaulting Yerevan police during the July 2016 Sari Tagh disturbances, a police prosecution witness testified that some of the demonstrators were drunk and threw stones in the direction of the police.
Police Inspector Rafayel Manukyan today testified in a Yerevan court that some of the demonstrators at the July 2016 Sari Tagh disturbance were drunk and that he witnessed one of his colleagues hit by rocks thrown by them.
“My aim was to start negotiations between Sasna Dzrer and the regime to avoid fratricide,” Ghukasyan said, adding that the government was responsible for the mayhem that occurred in the Sari Tagh neighborhood on Yerevan.
The lawyer for political activist Andreas Ghukasyan, who ran for president of Armenia in 2013 and is now being tried on charges stemming from the 2016 Sasna Dzrer incident, today motioned that the presiding judge in the trial recuse himself.
Yegnukian’s attorney, Tigran Hayrapetyan, said that his clients blood pressure was quite high and that doctors wanted to consult with the judge.
Sergey Kyureghyan, one of the Sasna Dzrer members on trial in Yerevan, was taken to an isolation cell last night according to his lawyer Moushegh Shoushanyan.
Shatin is on the banks of the Yeghegis River, a tributary of the Arpa. Most of the residents trace their roots back to the province of Salmast, Iran.
Several defendants in today’s court session of the Sasna Dzrer case said their actions in July 2016, when they seized a Yerevan police station and held in for two weeks, was in response to the current government’s failed policies domestically and in Artsakh.
81-year-old Volodya Poghosyan has been living in a landslide zone for a good part of his life. Poghosyan, and the six other members of his family, reside in Shatin, a village in Armenia’s Vayots Dzor Province.
Political activist Andreas Ghukasyan, who ran for president in 2013 and is now under arrest and awaiting trial on charges stemming from the 2016 Sasna Dzrer incident, today petitioned a Yerevan court to be freed on 1.5 AMD bail.
Architect Vigen Hakobyan says that Sevan should have become a major town over the years; a modern tourist center to service and welcome visitors. Hakobyan notes that, on the contrary, Sevan is gradually getting smaller.