On April 26 Hasmik Sinanyan, who had to testify at the Erebuni and Nubarashen communities' general jurisdiction court at the trial of Levon Avagyan, a former teacher of Nubarashen boarding school 11, was taken in the morning to the Nor Nork Police Department for unknown reasons. Avagyan is charged with forcible lecherous actions against school pupils (Article 142, part 2 of Criminal Code).   

Hasmik Sinanyan is one of the Nubarashen boarding school 11 pupils against whom former teacher of the school Levon Avagyan took forcible lecherous actions.

During the court session Hasmik's attorney Tigran Hayrapetyan said that the girl was still in police and her second attorney Avag Lalayan was not allowed to meet her.

Hasmik is the only pupil who continued to insist on what happened with her when other pupils had changed their testimony.

During the court session Avagyan presented an application that he had an argument with his attorney, Victoria Kirakosyan, before the session and he waived his council. He asked a week from the court for the new attorney to get acquainted with the case.

Tigran Hayrapetyan, attorney of the aggrieved party, said that rejecting the attorney is the right of the defendant and there is nothing extraordinary in the fact that Avagyan waived his council before the session.

Mariam Sukhudyan is also recognized a witness in the case; she came to the court and expressed her readiness to testify on this criminal case. Sukhudyan worked in the school as a UN volunteer and announced about the teacher's lecherous actions. A criminal case was launched against her first for false denunciation then for slander.  

Sukhudyan told that she was later offered to agree to amnesty but she refused. Later new recordings done by reporter Karine Ionesyan with aggrieved children, the "Woman of Courage" award presented to her by the US Ambassador as well as new data obtained on the case made the prosecutors drop the charges against Sukhudyan and she appeared at the trial as a witness.

The next court session was appointed on May 4, 12:00 a.m.

Christine Vardanyan

P.S. At the end of the working day we managed to talk with minor Hasmik Sinanyan's attorney Avag Lalayan who finally visited his defendant at the police department. He said that Hasmik was taken to police to testify on a different case of theft.

Later we learned that Hasmik Sinanyan was released after testifying as a witness. Tigran Hayrapetyan told us that Hasmik was kept in the police for 5 hours; the police took away her telephone and did now allow her to call her attorney. The defendant was allowed to meet her attorney only after the interference of the representative of the ombudsman's office.

"Actually keeping a person in captivity for 5 hours - from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., can be considered detention which is a violation of both Constitution and European Convention," the attorney says.

Mariam Sukhudyan dispersed new information in Facebook on keeping the witness at police:

"Today H. Sinanyan, former pupil of the Nubarashen boarding school, minor aggrieved party, was taken to the Nor Nork police and was kept there from 9 to 2; the police did not allow her to make or answer telephone calls, and when she wanted to inform her attorney about it, the investigator told her: "You don't need an attorney, what can he do?"

The girl, who was very active from the beginning and did not repudiate her testimony and insisted on the charges about Levon Avagyan's sexual encroachments, informed the Nor Nork police investigator that she was called to the court session at 1:00 p.m. as an aggrieved party and asked to let her go but the investigator answered: "Never mind, they will postpone the session." 

After waiting for two hours the attorney applied to the ombudsman's office asking them to interfere. Finally, after they talked to the chief, the girl was released...

H. Sinanyan was taken to the police because yesterday a car was hijacked at their yard and her husband was among the suspects...

So today in the morning Hasmik was taken to the police with her husband without any notice. The policemen told her: "We need you, you know a lot..."