Epress.am News from Armenia
Former head of the RA Police General Department of Criminal Intelligence Hovhannes Tamamyan (pictured), who is being charged for abusing his authority, is currently being held in Yerevan-Kentron (“Center”) penitentiary, adjacent to the National Security Service. While the sanction for imprisonment was being examined in court, Tamamyan was kept isolated, not being allowed to have contact with journalists and this “isolation successfully continues today,” reports local daily Hraparak.
These days only his wife and son, as well as his attorney, have come to visit him. The choice of the attorney speaks to the fact that strict control is being applied to Tamamyan: defending him is attorney Vaghinak Gevorgyan, who is known for his close ties to heads of law enforcement agencies as well as for the provision of certain services to the prosecutor’s office. There were a high-profile stories at one time where illegal interrogations, searches and confrontations of the accused were legalized with Gevorgyan’s signature, reports the daily.
According to Hraparak, Tamamyan was not allowed to choose his own lawyer, but rather was advised to sign a contract with Gevorgyan and generally, accept the “rules of the game” as they are being proposed to him, otherwise “it’ll be bad.” And so, writes Hraparak, the former police official has placed his hope on the mercy of the authorities and particularly the prosecutor’s office.
Recall that according to a Mar. 2 press release on the RA General Prosecutor’s official website, “Hovhannes Tamamyan and Varazdat Adamyan failed to do their duties and undertake necessary measures to reveal a crime which led to the distortion and fraud of the significant circumstances of the investigation of the criminal case as well as to the distortion of the actions taken by the participants of the crime.”
Recall, a local court on Mar. 24 ruled in favor of a two-month pretrial detention as a measure of restraint for Tamamyan.