Epress.am News from Armenia
The criminal case initiated over the beating death of Karabakh war veteran Vardan Tumanyan “has been left in limbo” for about a year now, Tigran Muradyan, a lawyer for the legal successor of the deceased, said in conversation with Epress.am Monday. The lawyer insisted that the judicial investigation is being deliberately delayed since officials intend to release the accused, who have been freed on their own recognizance, under an amnesty.
Recall, Tumanyan, 55, died in July 2014, one day after being brutally beaten in a Yerevan yard. Gevorg Sargsyan, known by the nickname "Jungle", and his two nephews, Sargis Ghukasyan and Viktor Hovsepyan, were subsequently arrested on charges of infliction of willful medium-gravity damage to health by a group of persons.
During the last hearing, which was held in September, 2015, lawyer Muradyan had filed a motion for the recusal of prosecutor Yuri Aghayan, claiming that the latter had “failed to notice the blatant and obvious contradictions” between the findings of two previously conducted forensic medical examinations: according to the first conclusion, Tumanyan's death had been directly related to the beating, while the second test claimed that the veteran had died because of a birth defect.
“We have sent the results of both examinations to foreign experts who have replied that the presented facts did not give basis to conclude that the death was caused by a congenital disorder. We intend to present this conclusion in court. We were told in July by an assistant to the judge that one day each week in August would be allocated to the case; however, they had set only one date, which was subsequently postponed due to the prosecutor being in vacation,” Muradyan told Epress.am today.