Victory in the Case of Our Client Accused of a Serious Crime: The Act Was Reclassified as a Misdemeanor

In the criminal case No. ED1/1267/01/24, examined in the First Instance Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan, our office’s attorney, Edgar Ayvazyan, represented the defendant N.H., who had been charged under Article 452, Part 4, Clause 2 of the Criminal Code of Armenia for committing a serious crime—namely, using violence against a police officer in order to interfere with their official duties.

On December 17, 2024, the Criminal Court of General Jurisdiction of the First Instance of Yerevan, having considered the investigator’s motion to reaffirm the detention imposed on A. Gh., the client of our office’s attorneys, Arsen Sardaryan and Edgar Ayvazyan, who is accused of serious and particularly serious crimes, rejected the motion and applied an alternative preventive measure, including house arrest.

As we previously reported, between June and November 2024, four foreign nationals involved in the same criminal proceedings approached our office at different times. The detention imposed on all of them as a preventive measure was replaced with an alternative measure within days of our lawyers taking over their defense. (https://www.lsa.am/a-series-of-victories-for-lsa-detention-of-4-defendants-replaced-by-alternative-preventive-measures/)

In a criminal proceeding initiated by the Anti-Corruption Committee of the Republic of Armenia, the client of our office’s attorneys Andranik Mnatsakanyan and Edgar Ayvazyan, E.B., was charged under Article 435, Part 3, Point 3 of the RA Criminal Code for a particularly grave crime, namely receiving a particularly large bribe by a group of officials. Thanks to the correctly chosen defense strategy and the objective approach demonstrated by the investigator conducting the preliminary investigation and the supervising prosecutor, the detention applied as a preventive measure against the accused was lifted, and a restriction on leaving the country was imposed as a preventive measure.

Residents of Abovyan city, Kotayk region of Armenia, A.A. and A.S.A., were accused of committing a murder as part of a group and acquiring and possessing weapons as part of a group—actions prohibited under the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia. As a result of nearly a year of persistent work...