{"id":251857,"date":"2014-04-08T13:10:19","date_gmt":"2014-04-08T09:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=251857"},"modified":"2014-04-08T13:10:19","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T09:10:19","slug":"judge-is-biased-claims-lawyer-defending-young-murder-suspect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2014\/04\/08\/judge-is-biased-claims-lawyer-defending-young-murder-suspect.html","title":{"rendered":"Judge is Biased, Claims Lawyer Defending Young Murder Suspect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">The term of the pre-trial detention of murder suspect Karen Kungortsev was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2013\/12\/06\/disclosure-of-murder-case-jeopardized-believes-defense-lawyer.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>once again<\/strong><\/span><\/a> extended. The court yet again did not take into account the defense motion.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe Lori District Court of First Instance presided over by Judge Varduhi Hovnanyan (pictured) began examining the motion to extend Kungortsev&#39;s detention by two months on April 4 and ended on April 7. The court session began with Kungortsev&#39;s attorney, Helsinki Association for Human Rights lawyer Arayik Papikyan submitting a petition for the judge&#39;s recusal. Papikyan explained that the investigator submitted 4 petitions for Kungortsev&#39;s arrest and continued imprisonment, which were examined by the same judge, Hovnanyan. The previous 3 requests were granted, even when the investigator presented no substantiated facts or evidence, being limited solely to legislative wording.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe attorney mentioned in his petition that the court justifies the judicial act merely by legislative wording, which is not only insufficient, but also unacceptable for extending a person&#39;s term of imprisonment. Furthermore, Papikyan said, there is reasonable doubt that judge is not impartial specifically toward Kungortsev and has a biased attitude. This is the fourth time, the defense said, the judge has considered the investigator&#39;s petition on arrest, three of which contain practically the same content, not paying attention to this fact and sustaining the previous 3 petitions.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tNevertheless, on April 7, the judge denied the petition for recusal, claiming that the judge has no bias or prejudice against the accused.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThen the court considered the investigator&#39;s petition, heard the objections of the defense and the accused, and decided to grant the application. Thus, Kungortsev&#39;s term of imprisonment was extended by two month.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRecall, Kungortsev, 22, is accused of murdering David Hovakimyan, 15. Kungortsev says he is innocent, while human rights defenders and his attorney point to violations during the preliminary investigation. While behind bars, the accused <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2013\/10\/30\/murder-accused-removed-stitches-on-his-mouth-after-attorney%E2%80%99s-appeal.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>resorted to self harm<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, as well as beginning a hunger strike. His mother, Anahit Harutyunyan, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2013\/10\/22\/mother-of-man-accused-of-murder-claims-son-was-beaten-by-police.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>said<\/strong><\/span><\/a> that her son was beaten by police while under police custody and forced to confess to the crime.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The term of the pre-trial detention of murder suspect Karen Kungortsev was once again extended. The court yet again did not take into account the defense motion.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[50913,50914,50912],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}