In addition to the report disseminated by the National Security Service, we would like to inform the following:
The Court of General Jurisdiction of Syunik Marz rendered a criminal judgement of conviction against the mentioned persons upon the criminal judgement of 20 January 2022, by sentencing Atilla Çiçek to imprisonment for a term of 7 years with confiscation of property in the amount of USD 5700, and Hüseyin Yıldırım to imprisonment for a term of 7 years with confiscation of property in the amount of 3 million Iranian Rials.
Based on the appeal of the criminal judgement, the Criminal Court of Appeal of the Republic of Armenia partially granted the appeal of 23 February 2022, rendered a decision on quashing the criminal judgement with respect to the sentence and changed it with respect to the quashed part by imposing a final sentence of imprisonment for a term of 5 years, whereas the type of punishment 'confiscation of property' was left unchanged. At the same time, by applying the relevant article of the Criminal Code, the punishment was conditionally not applied to them and a probation period for a term of 3 years was defined.
Detention as a measure of restraint chosen for both persons was abolished by the Court and they were released from the courtroom.
We would like to emphasise that a cassation appeal against the judicial act was filed by both the Prosecutor General’s office of the Republic of Armenia and the defence counsels of the accused-on-trial, but the appeals were rejected to be accepted for proceedings.
Thus, the relevant judicial act entered into force and, on 28 July 2022, the order for enforcement and the carbon copy of the judicial act were forwarded to the Probation Service, taking into consideration the fact that in the Republic of Armenia, in case of conditionally not applying the punishment, the supervision over the probation period is exercised by the Probation Service of the Ministry of Justice.
Naturally, the exercise of the supervision assumes implementation of actions by the probation officer — finding, notifying the person, explaining his or her rights and obligations thereto, taking him or her under record-registration, drawing up a supervision plan, etc.
Syunik Marz Body of the Probation Service, following the receipt of the judicial act, for the purpose of ensuring the enforcement of the mentioned actions, attempted to establish the location of the mentioned persons; however, as they were not detected, on 8 August 2022, it filed a motion with the court on putting Atilla Çiçek and Hüseyin Yıldırım on the wanted list.
On 22 August 2022, the Court of General Jurisdiction of Syunik Marz granted the motion, finding that the mentioned persons prima facie avoid supervision, all the measures for detecting them have been exhausted, the mentioned persons have been put on the wanted list, and the enforcement of the decision was assigned to Goris Division of Syunik Marz Department of the Police of the Republic of Armenia. We would like to inform that the Ministry of Justice has no information on the location of the persons being on the wanted list.
Donor Co-ordination Council Meeting with the participation of Minister of Justice Karen Andreasyan took place at the United Nations Office in Armenia.
During the meeting, Minister Andreasyan touched upon the large-scale armed attack against the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia by the armed forces of Azerbaijan, as well as expressed his gratitude to the organisations carrying out international missions in Armenia for the support provided.
All the present members of the diplomatic corps and representatives of the international organisations expressed their deep regret for the developments and the losses, and expressed their support once again.
Minister Karen Andreasyan emphasised that despite the current situation established in Armenia, the Ministry of Justice consistently continues the implementation of the multi-sector reform programme being implemented by the Ministry with the support of international partners.
Minister Andreasyan presented the programmes being implemented jointly with the international partners during the last one year, the relevant legislative amendments taken place, the legal acts adopted within the framework of those programmes, as well as he highlighted the relevant needs in terms of ensuring the effectiveness of the programmes presented. In particular, the reform programmes being implemented in the sectors of human right protection, police, anti-corruption, constitutional, judicial and legal, penitentiary sectors, as well as the results thereof were presented.
During the meeting, the public administration reform team presented the current phased implementation of the Public Administration Reform Strategy in four main directions — strategic planning, policy development, public services, human resources and institutional development, as well as detailed the time limits pre-defined by the Strategy for the implementation of each action.
High-ranking guests of the diplomatic corps and organisations carrying out international missions in Armenia, including representatives of the United Nations Organisation, European Union, Council of Europe, US Agency for International Development, World Bank, Asian Development Bank were present at the event.
