{"id":280450,"date":"2017-05-12T17:13:13","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T13:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/epress.am\/?p=280450"},"modified":"2017-05-12T17:36:57","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T13:36:57","slug":"trial-over-brother-of-yerevan-armed-group-member-tainted-by-judges-obvious-bias-lawyer-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2017\/05\/12\/trial-over-brother-of-yerevan-armed-group-member-tainted-by-judges-obvious-bias-lawyer-says.html","title":{"rendered":"Trial Over Brother of Yerevan Armed Group Member Tainted By Judge&#8217;s Obvious Bias, Lawyer Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"western\">Assigning <strong><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><a style=\"color: #003366;\" href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2016\/11\/28\/broken-cell-window-in-yerevan-prison-replaced-only-after-ombudsmans-intervention.html\">Ararat Khandoyan<\/a><\/span><\/strong> a public defender against his will is a plain violation of his right to defense, Khandoyan&#8217;s chosen lawyer, Ara Gharagyozyan, told Epress.am on Friday, adding that he has already taken the issue to Armenia&#8217;s Human Rights Ombudsman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"western\">Ararat Khandoyan, brother of Sasna Tsrer (Daredevils of Sasun) anti-government group member Arayik Khandoyan, <strong><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><a style=\"color: #003366;\" href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2016\/07\/24\/relatives-of-erebuni-gunmen-detained-by-security-forces.html\">was arrested<\/a><\/span><\/strong> on July 21, 2016, following clashes between police and supporters of Sasna Tsrer and is being accused of taking part in mass disorders and using violence against a police officer. During a hearing two weeks ago, judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan removed Khandoyan from the courtroom \u201cfor disruptive behavior,\u201d after which, Khandoyan&#8217;s lawyer, Ara Gharagyozyan, also left the premises. Martirosyan then decided to deprive Gharagyozyan from the right to represent Khandoyan and instead assigned the defendant public defender Lianna Gasparyan against Khandoyan\u2019s wishes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"western\">\u201cThe Ombudsman is not usually involved in trials, but here we are dealing with a violation of Khandoyan&#8217;s human rights and an obstruction of justice. We have also asked the Ombudsman to send one of his staffers to Khandoyan&#8217;s next hearing [on May 18] in order to keep record of the illegalities taking place in the courtroom,\u201d Gharagyozyan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"western\">Commenting on judge Martirosyan&#8217;s conduct, the lawyer noted that the judge has been showing his bias over the case right from the beginning; \u201cThere are two prosecutors in the courtroom \u2013 the real one, Hayk Petrosyan, and judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan. He has been making it evident that he fully supports the accusations [against Khandoyan] and cannot therefore be considered an impartial judge conducting a fair trial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"western\">Gharagyozyan is convinced that the decision to appoint Martirosyan as a presiding judge in Khandoyan&#8217;s case was not coincidental, since \u201call politically-motivated trials in Armenia are usually presided over by him. There is a tendency here that all Armenian political prisoners should be sentenced by Martirosyan.\u201d<\/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>He has been making it evident that he fully supports the accusations [against Khandoyan] and cannot therefore be considered an impartial judge conducting a fair trial&#8230;<!-- 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":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[66033],"tags":[66132,65912,65913,27008],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280450"}],"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=280450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}