YEREVAN. – The lawyers of Gagik Tsarukyan—chairman of the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), MP, and business tycoon—will file an appeal with the court. Lawyer Emin Khachatryan told about this to Armenian News-NEWS.am, noting that they are appealing against the fact that the case has been sent to the court of first instance for a new examination.
To note, the Criminal Court of Appeal had denied the lawyers’ appeal in this case.
The prosecutor’s office had appealed the decision of the first instance court to deny the motion to arrest Tsarukyan as a pretrial measure, demanding that the appellate court overturn this decision and have the PAP leader arrested; this appeal was partially granted.
Tsarukyan’s attorneys had submitted several appeals to the appellate court, one of which referred to reasonable doubt. Accordingly, the defense finds that no evidence has been presented to the court to substantiate that the PAP leader is related to that criminal case.
Another appeal refers to the legality of the proceedings, as according to the defense attorneys, the criminal case should have been investigated by the Special Investigation Service, and not by the National Security Service, from the very beginning.
Gagik Tsarukyan is charged with vote buying, but he does not accept the charge and says it is unlawful.