Levon Barseghyan

On June 1 of 2018, the Criminal Court of Appeals (chaired by Judge M. Martirosyan) made a decision to satisfy the appeal submitted by the defenders of Levon Barseghyan Haykuhi Harutyunyan and Araks Melkonyan and to overturn the decision on the detention of Levon Barseghyan made by the Yerevan First Instance Court (chaired by Judge A. Gabrielyan) on April 23 of 2018.

It should be mentioned, that an accusation by the characteristics of Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 225 and Article 225.1 of the RA Criminal Code was brought against Levon Barseghyan for organizing mass disorders during the April events of 2018 and for directly participating, as well as for guiding the protest participants.

On April 23 of 2018, Yerevan First Instance Court satisfied the intervention submitted by the Special Investigation Service on the application of detention against Levon Barseghyan for 25 months. Moreover, the Court rejected the intervention on the replacement of arrest by pledge submitted by Levon Barseghyan and his defenders.

Nevertheless, on April 23 of 2018, the preventive measure was changed and Levon Barseghyan was released late evening of April 23 of 2018.

On April 26 of 2018, a complaint against the decision made by the First Instance Court was submitted to the RA Criminal Court of Appeal by the defenders of L. Barseghyan.

According to the decision made by the Criminal Court of Appeal it was recorded, that “The First Instance Court came to a wrong conclusion in regard to the factual data regarding the grounding relationship of the accused in the alleged action by the later and the observations of the First Instance Court do not come from the factual data observed by the Court”.

In regard to the grounds of the detention, the Court of Appeal recorded, that “The observations of the First Instance Court in regard to the respective behavior of Levon Barseghyan in case of being in freedom are exclusively based on the nature, danger degree of the given crime committed by the accused. In the given case, concrete factual data in the factual data observed by the court are missing, which will prove that the person accused of the crime while being in liberty can hide from the body in charge of conducting the criminal proceeding, can hinder the investigation in pre-trial proceeding or in the court or commit an action prohibited by the criminal law. […] Moreover, the factual data characterizing the person and his conduct within the scope of the respective intervention’s investigation fact about the opposite”.

According to the evaluation of the Court, the First Instance Court did not apply correctly the legal regulations of the RA Constitution, RA Criminal Procedure Code, the legal positioning of the RA Court of Cassation and the European Court of Human Rights reflected in the cases with the similar factual circumstances, during which violation of requirements of the RA Criminal Procedure Code was made, which were grounds to overturn the judicial of the First Instance Court.

According to the Court of Appeal, in the outcomes of applying detention as a preventive measure against Lebon Barsegyan, his rights to personal freedom and to personal immunity were violated.