Epress.am News from Armenia
Yerevan’s Shengavit district court yesterday held another hearing on the Mansuryans’ family axing case. The family’s neighbors, spouses Lilit Harutyunyan and Samvel Grigoryan, were invited to testify as witnesses on Tuesday as they were the first to come to the Mansuryan’s aid on the day of the attack.
Recall, on July 8, 2016, Vladik Martirosyan attacked his former wife Taguhi Mansuryan and her parents, axing his former mother-in-law to death and leaving Mansuryan and her father severely injured. In his pre-trial testimony, however, the defendant claimed that his actions had not been premeditated and that he had “only taken away the axe from Vachagan Mansuryan in self-defense.” Meanwhile, speaking to reporters after the tragic incident, Taguhi Mansuryan had said her former spouse had repeatedly threatened her and her family in the past, and the attack therefore “was not a big surprise.”
When questioning the witnesses yesterday, the defendant’s lawyer, Liana Gasparyan, tried mainly to determine who the axe belonged to and whether the neighbors had previously seen an axe at the Mansuryan’s house. The lawyer also asked whether the witnesses had previously seen Martirosyan carrying an axe.
Speaking to our reporter after the hearing, human rights defender Eduard Danielyan said the lawyer’s last question was “ridiculous and illogical” since “people don’t normally walk around with an axe in their hands.”
Nevertheless, the witnesses told the court they had previously seen an axe neither in Vladik’s hands nor at the Mansuryan’s house. The spouses also insisted they were never particularly close to the Mansuryans and knew nothing more about them than about the former son-in-law.
The defendant, in turn, asked the witnesses to describe his character and whether they thought he was capable of the actions he is being accused of. “To tell the truth, I never thought it would get to this. But it did, so I don’t know. As far as I knew, you were normal,” witness Grigoryan replied.
Grigoryan’s further statements were significantly different from his pre-trial testimony, in which he had said Mansuryan would have killed the Mansuryan’s had he not come to their rescue in time. The witness had previously cited Martirosyan as saying “I’ll end you all” and “Let go of me! I have to kill them all!” as he had tried to remove Martirosyan from the area. Yesterday, meanwhile, Grigoryan insisted he did not recall the defendant shouting these threats.
The police officers who had arrived at the scene on the day of the incident, Norayr Abrahamyan and Davit Panoyan, also testified on Tuesday. On the day of the axing, Martirosyan had once again gone to Mansuryan’s house in order to “resolve the issues over the child visitations.” The former spouses had begun quarreling again, and both sides subsequently called the police, accusing eachother of physical violence. Martirosyan also called an ambulance, claiming that he had begun feeling unwell during the argument; he then refused to go to the police station for questioning, saying to Abrahamyan and Panoyan that he was waiting for his ambulance and would go to the station in the morning.
When asked by the court why they hadn’t insisted on taking Martirosyan to the police station, the officers replied that the defendant “was not aggressive and did not look dangerous, so we didn’t think there was anything to worry about.”
“This shows yet again that our law enforcement officers do not care about the people’s right to life. A person can never feel protected here because police can let a potential murderer walk free,” Eduard Danielyan told our reporter, commenting on the officers’ testimony.
According to Danielyan, the officers had to be extra vigilant when it came to Martirosyan as he had a prior indictment and a history of initiating arguments and fights with his former wife.