Mher Poghosyan

Court of Appeal starts proceeding of a murder case occurred 25 years ago, committed by former MP

Monday, July 8 2019 13:10

Ani Mshetsyan

ArmInfo. The Court of Appeal has started proceeding on a case on the murder of 25 years ago, submitted to the court by the Armenian military prosecutor's office, the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office informs.

According to the source, the case was reopened due to the identification of new facts. In 2018, the police of Armenia received a statement from E. Poghosyan that in 1994, in a restaurant complex in the village of Taronik, as a result of a quarrel H. Grigoryan killed the applicant's father Mher Poghosyan, however, as a result of a frame-up of facts H. G. was sentenced to just one year in prison.

During the preparation of the facts in this case, E.P. reaffirmed the information previously provided to them, adding that specific people who were at the crime scene reported him about the incident. Moreover, he noted that after the incident, the uncle of H.G. Manvel Grigoryan (general, former MP arrested on charges of embezzlement on a large scale, illegal possession of weapons and ammunition, ed. note), came to their house and intimidated his grandfather with so that he did not file a complaint, after which their family, frightened, left Armenia.

A certificate was also received, signed by the then Deputy Minister of Defense, that Mher Poghosyan died on April 16, 1994, while on duty. As a result the Armenian police, on August 6, 2018 opened a criminal case under Article 314 of the RA Criminal Code (Forgery).

As a result of large-scale operational and investigative actions carried out during the preliminary investigation, evidence was obtained that Mher Pogosyan, director of the Echmiadzin factory "Toch Pribor", with three people, on April 16, 1994, went to a restaurant in the village of Aknalich. After lunch, several people approached them, including H.G. There was a quarrel, during which H. G., after a shot in the air, shot at Mher Poghosyan and fled from the scene.

Poghosyan was taken to hospital where he died. It was also established that a criminal case was opened on April 17, 1994, and at the first stage of the case H.G. was charged under Article 99 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia (killing a person for a minor reason and endangering the lives of others).

However, on April 26, a decision was made to change the charge, and on December 19, the court made a decision on recognizing H.G. guilty under point "B" 259.1 of the article, according to which Mher Poghosyan died as a result of improper handling of weapons by H.G., and he was deprived of his liberty for a period of one year.

Also, the documents were confiscated from the Ministry of Defense according to which Mher Poghosyan was found dead, despite the fact that the latter had no relation to military service. According to these documents, Poghosyan died on April 16, 1994 in the village of Mataghis in the NKR, which contradicts the materials of the criminal case and the decision of the court. Moreover, Poghosyan was posthumously awarded a medal for courage by the second president of Armenia in 2002.

Given the newly discovered and previously unknown to the court circumstances in this case, which prove that the crime of the convicted person was more serious than the one for which he was convicted, the military prosecutor Vahe Harutyunyan has opened a criminal case. Moreover, the investigation of the Poghosyan murder case, as well as the court decision, was carried out with obvious violations.

Considering all of the above, the military prosecutor Vahe Harutyunyan, filed an appeal in the case of the murder of 25 years ago, taking into account newly discovered facts, and sent the case to the court of first instance for a second consideration. The complaint is currently in progress.

To note, the accused H.G. (Hrant Grigoryan, ed. note) is the nephew of the arrested General Manvel Grigoryan. It is noteworthy that after this incident, Grigoryans did not communicate at all, moreover, according to information from circles close to Grigoryan, there was a feud between them. After the incident, Hrant Grigoryan was twice elected a member of the Armenian parliament by the majority system from the Vagharshapat community, and was a member of the then ruling Republican Party.

Source: https://arminfo.info/full_news.php?id=43616&lang=3

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