Three human rights NGOs are going to submit a report on illegally detaining citizen Sargis Poghosyan at the "Nubarashen" penitentiary for already a month. Lawyer Edmon Marukyan the representative of "Civil Society Institute", "Helsinki Committee of Armenia" and "Helsinki Citizen Assembly of Vanadzor Office" NGOs informed www.hra.am about this.

As a reminder, Armenian citizen Sargis Poghosyan as a result of being wanted by the US law enforcement agencies was detained at RA "Zvartnoc" airport and was kept at "Nubarashen" penitentiary from the 5th of August till the 1st of September of 2010 without any decision of the court as prescribed by law.

This case was revealed by the group of public observers of penitentiaries who turned to the law enforcement agencies demanding instituting criminal proceedings.

No criminal proceeding was instituted and the heads of the NGOs applied to court demanding that the court obliged the RA Prosecutor General's office to institute the criminal proceeding.

The Court of First Instance rejected, and the RA Court of Criminal Appeals satisfied the claim of three NGOs, which already entered into force. Court of Cassation returned the appeal of Prosecutor General's office.

Thus, the Court of Appeals considers the fact of detention of S. Poghosyan based on the note from the Prosecutor General's office as illegal, since there was no court decision as it is provisioned by law.

The Court obliged the Prosecutor General's Office to eliminate the violations of human rights and freedoms, however, until today nothing has been undertaken.

 The same answer was received from the Prosecutor General's office, after the NGOs submitted second report.

The answer of the office received on October 5 says, "Since the international cooperation of states against crime is realized based on convention, i.e. international legal document (conventions, agreements, etc) on fight against crimes, as well as based on institutional means, in this case RA Prosecutor General's office took into consideration the fact of search of Sargis Poghosyan by International criminal police, which was announced by the decision of the competent court of the US".

The representative of NGOs, lawyer Edmon Marukyan mentions, that the decision of Richmond district court (State of Virginia) on detention cannot be a basis for detaining a person in the RA penitentiary, since according to the 10th point of 141 article of RA Criminal Procedure Code detention facility administration was to release the detainees who were imprisoned without the court's corresponding decision.

The head of the international legal department of Prosecutor General's office, first class adviser of Justice affairs Nelly Harutyunyan writes in her response, that RA Prosecutor Generals' office is obliged to eliminate the violations of human rights based on the decision of Court of Criminal Appeals made on the 30^th of May, 2011, "even though it is not clearly mentioned which person is in the question".

"If you speak about Sargis Poghosyan, then he wrote a statement on the 11^th of January, 2011, in which he mentioned that his rights are not violated and he did not authorize anyone to speak on his behalf for defending his rights".

The heads of the NGOs and their representative Edmon Marukyan explained in different occasions, that their aim is not simply defending Sargis Poghosyan, but preventing the wrong steps of Prosecutor General's office.

Mary Alexanyan

Source: www.hra.am