Epress.am News from Armenia
Harutyun Poghosyan, a prisoner of the Kosh Penitentiary in Armenia’s Aragatsotn province, has gone on a hunger strike to protest against the refusal of his early release appeal and holding of a court hearing in his absence.
Gor Ghlechyan, spokesperson for the penitentiary department at Armenia’s Justice Ministry, told Epress.am on Wednesday that following the launch of the hunger strike, the prisoner was transferred to a separate cell. When asked by our reporter why Poghosyan had not been taken to his court hearing, the official said “it is not our responsibility to take prisoners to and from courts.”
During the hearing held at Yerevan’s Kentron and Nork-Marash district court, judge Armen Bektashyan upheld the decision of the parole commission to refuse Harutyun Poghosyan’s early release appeal.