The attorney of Nshan Harutyunyan sentenced for 5 years of imprisonment applied to the RA Cassation Court to annul the decision of the Court of Appeal and start a new investigation by another composition of judges in the Court of First Instance. The lawyer hopes to reach acquittal by bringing the case back to the Court of First Instance.

Another lawyer, Seda Safaryan also applied to the Court of Appeal requesting acquittal for Nshan Haroutyunyan.

We have reliable information that the Prosecutor's office of the Ararat marz makes efforts to influence the Court of Cassation to decline the request on Nshan Haroutyunyan case.

According to the decisions of the Court of First Instance of Ararat and Vayots Dzor marzes (placed in town Masis), and then Court of Appeal on Criminal Cases, Nshan Haroutyunyan is convicted for machination of gross scale in regards to obtaining illegally 16000USD (4 million 520 thousand AMD) from his aunt Margarite. 

Margartie Martirosyan to all our questions replied in a threatening manner: "Don't dare to write anything, until Artak, my son, it is all about him, does not receive decision on amnesty from the Presidential office, otherwise you'll spoil everything".

Her son, Artak Manaseryan, 30 year old, is imprisoned for 12 years for killing his lonely aunt Rosa Martisoryan. He tried to convince her to mortgage her apartment and then sell it. He wanted to take the money to close his debt at bank. The auntie did not agree and told him that she would bequeath the apartment to one of her other nephews.

Nshan Haroutyunyan upon his will and by the court decision was acknowledged as Rosa's after her death.

In the Court of Appeals the case of Nshan was investigated by the same composition of judges, which sentenced Artak, Margarite's son, for 12 years. The same court later changed the sentence of Artak, diminishing it by 4 years and making a decision for imprisonment of 8 years.

As Artak was imprisoned, Nshan was helping his aunt Margarite to sell the greenhouse near her home for 1 million 700 thousand Drams to pay the money for Artak's debt to the bank, also he helped her to take back the pledged at her daughter-in law's name jewels and to sell it. With this money the mother wanted to decrease the sentence of her son.

According to Margarite, Nshan swindled her, passing only part of the money to her. " When Nshan applied to the police declaring that his aunt blackmails him, a criminal case was opened not against his auntie but him. The criminal case was opened at the application of Margarite that her nephew used machination to take her money, which was promised to help in decreasing the sentence of her son.  Thus, Nshan who was interrogated as witness for 6 years, did not know that he was interrogated as a suspect. About the criminal case against him he learnt only just after announcement of the verdict on Artak's case, on February 3, 2009", says the lawyer.

On June 25, 4 months later, Nshan Haroutyunyan was arrested. 

According to the court decision on Nshan's case, Nshan "with the purpose to diminish the sentence of Artak Manaseryan, decided to steal money from Margarite".

Nshan's lawyers Seda Safaryan and Vardan Nikoghosyan regarded the evidence brought up by the preliminary investigation and then the court as baseless and demanded approval for their client. The court declined the lawyers' all solicitations to invite witnesses of defence and guided by documents which had no legal status.

"The decisions of the courts are illegal and in reality Nshan became a victim of machination.  The court disregarded real evidence and guided by allegations," says lawyer Nikoghosyan. 

One of the arguments used in the court decision is that Margarite took the golden jewels of her daughter-in-law and appraised it as 30-33 USD for a gram.  The lawyer Nikoghosyan says that this is unacceptable, as gold of different standard has different market price. Margarite says that when the judge asked her how much her gold costed she remembered that one of her acquaintances from a neighbouring village said to her "it is about 30-33 dollars."

The court took this assumption as a base and refused the solicitation of the defence to investigate the matter with official technical expertise.

Nshan asserts that his auntie, who worked as bookkeeper for her whole life was always present in all the talks about sales and at the moment of taking the money and paying for the bank debt on the same day. Also, Hmayak Mkrtchyan who bought the greenhouse and a golden chain from Margarite witnesses that she was present at the process of buying and selling.

The money which Nshan was receiving part by part, he was taking to the bank to pay for the credit his aunt had. This is evidenced by the checks of receipts from the bank, which were disregarded by the court. Hmayak also has a receipt signed by Nshan, which states that Margarite was present at the act of buying and selling, about which the court had no information, because it did not interrogate the witnesses appropriately.

The court took as evidence a paper signed and sealed by currently not acting  Artashat's City Soviet 26^th Committee, which says that Margarite had 56 heads of cattle and 115 pigs (total 171 heads). 

Since May 7, 2002, according to the Law on Local Self-Government, the district officers are no longer in force.  Therefore, the signed paper by the former district officer has no official force, nevertheless the court regarded this paper as legal basis from the prosecution.

This certificate is also in contradiction with the document on statistics on cattle produced by Artashat city council on September 10, 2009, which says that Margarite had 18 heads of cattle, 6 heads of calf and 26 pigs (total 50 heads), which is the real number of the cattle possessed by her.

The former district officer Gagik Petrosyan says that he knows that his seal is no longer official, but what he can do if the city council did not take it back from him.  People come and ask for certificates, and he gives it to them.  Thus,  he did not refuse Margarite's request and "if she is not satisfied with his certificate she could take it from the city council", says he. 

According to data of the State committee on real estate of Artashat, the cattle-house of Margarite is of 236,4 sq.m, which means that based on the certificate given by the former district officer, each farm animal has 1.3 sq m. -impossibly small amount to fit in- of space.

In the decision on Artak's case it is stated that his mother until her sister was killed possessed only 15-17 heads of cattle.  During the court hearings of Nshan, Artak stated that he has no claims regarding Nshan and that Nshan did not steal money of his mother. Artak also announced that the investigator did not record his statements correctly.

According to the lawyer, there were also procedural violations. The case should be investigated in the police of Ararat marz.   However, when it appeared in the marz prosecutor's office, the case was investigated by Masis criminal department.

The court refused all appeals of the defence, which could shed light on real circumstances of the case.  For example, a witness of the case, policeman Gegham Servazyan, who witnesses how Margarite blackmailed Nshan was not called to the court.

The lawyer says that if Nshan tried to machinate with the money, he would demand that at least a part of the heritage from his dead aunt pass to him. 

Margarite, without informing other relatives, declares herself as a heir of her sister, killed by her own son, and became the owner of Rosa's apartment. She sold it for 3900000 Drams.  By the way, the date of selling the apartment and the date of diminishing Artak's sentence from 12 to 8 years are the same.

The court decision also accepted as a base a statement of the relative of Margerite, which had no ground, that he gave 1 million dram to Margarite.  The court accepted it and added this million to the sum composed of gold, cattle and sum of the greenhouse. As a result it appeared that Nshan cheated on her aunt by 4 million 520 thousand drams. 

"Machination is when by cheating or misusing the confidence one obtains somebody's else property, and in the case of Nshan there is no basis to claim machination, and corpus delicti is absent," affirms the lawyer.

Christine Vardanyan