Epress.am News from Armenia
Armenian court resumed on February 5 hearing the case against Valery Permyakov, a former serviceman of Russia’s 102nd military base in the Armenian city of Gyumri who has confessed to killing seven members of the Avetisyan family in January, 2015. Recall, the trial is being held on the premises of the Russian base, while presiding judge Harutyun Movsisyan has rejected multiple petitions from the legal team of the Avetisyans' relatives to move the proceedings to the Shirak court of general jurisdiction.
The court today is set to hear testimonies of 16 witnesses, among them several servicemen of the Russian border guard unit in Armenia. Speaking to RFE/RL's Armenian service during a break, Lusine Sahakyan, one of the lawyers for the victims' relatives, said that the testimony of officer Mikhail Khachatryan has made it clear that the Armenian and Russian sides have “failed to perform their duties properly.”
According to case materials, Khachatryan is the serviceman who arrested Permyakov as the latter attempted to cross the Armenia-Turkey border several hours following the gruesome murders. The border guards subsequently handed Permyakov over to the Russian military authorities who held him in pre-trial custody at the 102nd military base, refusing for several months to transfer the murder case to Armenian jurisdiction. Hence, as stated by Sahakyan, the importance of his testimony in establishing the actual circumstances of the case in terms of challenging the legality of the actions of both the Armenian and Russian sides.
“It is obvious that the Russian military had provided incomplete information to Armenian investigators. They had not reported, for example, that they had been conducting search operations during the night,” Sahakyan said. The lawyer refused to further elaborate on Khachatryan's testimony, citing “certain tactics.”
Nevertheless, she stated that the testimony proved that the sides had not performed their duties properly: “In addition to the Russian side claiming custody over Permyakov, Khachatryan's testimony has made it clear that the Armenian side had been informed of the arrest, and the conscript would not have been taken to the Russian base had Armenian authorities actually done their job.”