Nikole Pashinyan's trial in the court of first instance of Shengavit takes to a new stage. The Prosecution has finished interrogation of its witnesses and examination of other evidences. Today the court will start examination of the motions of the Defense.

Interview with Lusineh Sahakyan

During the examination of the evidences in this stage, after publication of each document you made a statement. If we take into consideration that the indictment is constructed like it was in the case of the "Seven", nothing new seemed to have been added. Why have you addressed them in such a detailed manner?

Publications of the previous cases cannot be important for this case, as the prosecution and the defense can refer only to the evidences that are examined in this stage. We have addressed them in details because a protocol on observation in the materials of the criminal case was included, according to which these video records had been examined by the investigators and the results had been given to the experts. As a result they had received conclusion of the expert which obviously did not include video records, that show that Pashinyan regularly called for peace, and did everything so that no one used violence and became a party of a robbery. So Pashinyan paid particular attention to the circumstance that participants of the robbery did not have any connection to the participants of the rally. And it is not accidental that the investigation body did not include it in its protocol on observation and in the other documents these records are not included, because this material proves that Pahinyan had not committed any crime. This is the reason that we addressed this issue in that much detailed manner.

Besides, in these records it was more obvious what had happened in reality- attack on the citizens by the policemen, as well as violence exerted towards them, whereas the citizens' actions had self-defense nature. I would like also to mention that the video records examined in the court were cut and only the parts which can be considered "convicting evidence" according to the prosecution were presented. However, even in this state these video records can serve as justifying evidence. And if we present the continuation, it would become obvious what actions were taken by the policemen in reality and what actions were taken by the participants of the peaceful rally.
 
In most of the video records the dates are missing. Both you and Pashinyan have made statements about this. What danger do you see here, and what does it change in this criminal case.

Date mentioning is very important. They take some parts of the case, show some actions but do not mention this action was followed or preceded with what action. This can cause wrong opinion among the people. There are many such circumstances, for instance, they show that people have thrown stones on the policemen, but do not show that other actions have preceded, that before that the policemen opened fire on the population, or used automatic firing. So if we take out these parts it turns out that people without any reason attacked the policemen-this has nothing to do with the reality. The reality is that people took those actions in self-defense.

In the court you expressed an opinion that Pashinyan's voice was installed in such shots where in reality your defendant could not be present or his voice could not reach that place. Do you claim that investigative body had taken such an extreme measures?
Of course, it is like that. It can be seen that the person who recorded the video could not hear Nikole Pashinyan's voice. It means that they had used special means to send the voice to the one direction and the picture to another one, and it turned out that Mashtots-Paronyan crossroad was recorded and Nikole's voice was heard from Myasnikyan statute, which is in practice impossible. We have many testimonies and video records that show in what a small distance Nikole Pashinyan's voice could be heard. And this was given to the experts who say that after these actions people were made... All the shots where Pashinyan calls for peace are cut. They try not to notice all these materials, not to include them in the protocols, by cutting or uniting some parts they try to prove indictment. One more time I would like to mention that even with all these factors, investigative body does not have any proof that Pashinyan had organized mass disorder.

Whether during this stage of examination of evidence one more thing is disclosed as it was in the Interpol notice, that on that day Pashinyan was followed and all his activities were shot, about which you mentioned in the court several times.

It is obvious that they followed Nikole Pashinyan and all his activities were shot and among the evidence brought by them nothing shows that Nikole Pashinyan exerted violence or the people around him had taken such a step. If they had such evidence or if there had been such a thing they would bring it to the table first.  

In the next court session you will submit motions to the court to invite witnesses and examine video records. Will there be anything new for the public?

Of course, we will present evidence that will show clearly what happened on October 23, 2007 and what happened on March 1. There are video records that haven't been shown in the court, and there are video records that are not published at all. However, I haven't seen them. We will show all the records prepared by the National Security Service, the thing which was presented by the prosecution only partly. For instance, they do not show that a shooting is directly addressed on a person who is injured of that shot, etc. We will show also records which clearly present the activities of the soldiers, and show clearly that participants of the peaceful rally have nothing to do with this.

You also said that you had a number of evidence which would be presented to the court, including the witnesses. Are you sure that all your motions will be approved by the court?
 
If we start interrogation of the witnesses, they are hundreds of them, but I don't have much hope that the court would approve all these motions and all these witnesses would be interrogated. That's why we have planned other actions by which we will be able to present to the court the stories told by these people. If the court limits our motions, the public at least will become aware what evidence we have, and after that whether the court would accept those evidences, would examine them or not, would be left on the conscience of the court.

How do you evaluate the work of the court, particularly I mean the judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan, who does not have a good reputation in concluding objective decisions?

You ask a very difficult question. At first glance, the judge tries to maintain the external form, as if he protects the equality of the parties, but in reality our activities that preceded this one; making statements, expressing opinions, and others were refused. Besides, the previous decisions made by this judge show that we should not have high expectations, and the only our expectation from the fair court would be making a fair decision-Decision of Acquittal. We do not believe that it is possible to reach fair court decision in Armenia.

The interview was conducted by Zhanna Alexanyan