{"id":281921,"date":"2017-08-31T14:27:51","date_gmt":"2017-08-31T10:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/epress.am\/?p=281921"},"modified":"2017-08-31T14:27:51","modified_gmt":"2017-08-31T10:27:51","slug":"case-into-alleged-domestic-violence-wont-be-reopened-court-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2017\/08\/31\/case-into-alleged-domestic-violence-wont-be-reopened-court-rules.html","title":{"rendered":"Case Into Alleged Domestic Violence Won\u2019t Be Reopened, Court Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_281907\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-281907\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/arsennikoghosyan.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-281907 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/arsennikoghosyan.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-281907\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Judge Nikoghosyan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Yerevan\u2019s Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun district court, presided over by judge Arsen Nikoghosyan, ruled on Tuesday that the investigation into an alleged domestic violence case should not be reopened. The complaint had been filed by Yerevan woman <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2017\/05\/26\/police-are-not-private-guards-armenian-law-enforcers-have-no-mechanisms-to-protect-woman-from-abusive-husband.html\"><span style=\"color: #003366;\">Naira Smbatyan<\/span><\/a><\/strong>, who insisted that on January 4, 2017, she had been subjected to physical abuse in front of her 4 children by her husband Ara Khachatryan. After the beating, the woman filed a report with the Arabkir police department, where investigators soon launched a criminal case into an alleged domestic abuse and confirmed that the bruises on the woman\u2019s body were in fact marks of beating. Subsequently, however, the head investigator decided to terminate the case on the grounds that it was unknown who had beaten Smbatyan.<\/p>\n<p>The Tuesday hearing was held behind closed doors as per Ara Khachatryan\u2019s request. The husband, however, did not even wait for the announcement of the verdict and left the courtroom after the judge went to the contemplation room to decide on a verdict. Speaking to an Epress.am reporter after the hearing, Smbatyan\u2019s lawyer, Stepan Voskanyan, insisted that the investigation conducted by the police and the court ruling was biased.<\/p>\n<p>During the hearing, our reporter requested that the judge allow her to film the proceedings. Nikoghosyan, however, not only denied the reporter\u2019s request but also granted Ara Khachatryan\u2019s motion for holding a closed hearing. According to the husband, an open hearing could \u201cpotentially harm my children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy kids\u2019 classmates saw the videos from <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2017\/06\/13\/he-kicked-me-in-the-face-when-i-tried-to-leave-woman-tells-court.html\"><span style=\"color: #003366;\">the previous hearing<\/span><\/a><\/strong>,\u201d he said. Despite Smbatyan&#8217;s lawyer\u2019s argument that the criminal case concerned the beating of a woman and had nothing to do with the children, the judge remained included to hold the hearing without the presence of reporters.<\/p>\n<p>After the issuance of the verdict, lawyer Voskanyan told our reporter that the investigative body had not conducted a proper and complete investigation and had based its decision to terminate the case solely on the husband\u2019s testimony. \u201cThe investigation did not reveal any factual evidence that the beating was committed by a third person. The only correct decision would have been to involve the woman\u2019s husband as a suspect,\u201d the lawyer stressed, adding that he intended to challenge the verdict at the Court of Appeal.<\/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 Tuesday hearing was held behind closed doors as per Ara Khachatryan\u2019s request. The husband, however, did not even wait for the announcement of the verdict &#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":281908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[66033,65974],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281921"}],"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=281921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}