This trial has been going on for more than 10 months. In the course of the 10 months, the court has continually violated my rights, thus making me deprived of the opportunity of exercising my right to effective defense and fair trial, and of being examined by an independent and impartial court, since the latter strictly suspended all my attempts to apply available and unrestricted lawful measures I know to achieve justice and to discover crimes committed against me by law enforcement authorities. All 14 motions filed with the court both by me and my defender during the whole course of the trial, which should have enabled us to exercise my right to fair trial and to reveal the objective reality, were groundlessly dismissed by the judge, thus depriving me of the only opportunity of disclosing and proving through an impartial and unbiased trial that there was illegal criminal prosecution against me aimed at hindering the execution of my professional activities and silencing me as a human rights defender.

Among other motions, the court dismissed my request for additional questions to Arpi Meras, the victim in the case. It was not an end in itself, but the time approached when after we had obtained some other evidence and proofs, to address additional questions aimed at exposing the unreliableness of her testimonies and reporting; yet, the court made me deprived of the right, having an apparent fear that the “victim” could have forgotten the script she had previously been prompted and that she could give answers to my questions unwanted for those who had ordered the case, with that to ruin their efforts.

The court also dismissed the motion for the invitation to court of the notary of the centre M. Manukyan, the only real witness in this criminal case, fearing that with his testimonies he would break the criminal case initiated against me, so fake and fabricated, which would prove that the victim’s report and testimonies lied, and reveal also legal illiteracy of the pre-investigation body and ungrounded and absurd accusation of the prosecutor.

Since the moment I submitted a motion about inviting to court the deputy chief of police H. Poghsyan as a witness, it was convicted of dismissal because no one would dare to invite him to the court proceedings; had he allegedly come to court, he could not have answered any of my questions, or had he answered the questions, I would have enjoyed changing my place as a defendant.

As regards the shameless and unlawful motion on sending for the expertise a recording of “Internal Observation” operative-intelligence activity, conducted through gross violation of the law, the motion for sending, it was dismissed too, irrespective of the fact that the recording had obviously been interfered and montaged. To disclose it contradicted the plans of the court and of customers of this criminal case too; more than 10 or more motions were aborted simply: had they been satisfied, it would not have been possible to secure the invented criminal offense against me, as well as to be secured from the criminal responsibility of their peers.

By dismissing the motion, the court deprived me of any right and chance to eventually discover those gross violations of law which had been committed intentionally and in an organized manner, in order to suppress me and to create an atmosphere of fear around me. In any matter related to this criminal case, when submitting an inquiry to the relevant authorities or reporting the wrongdoing committed within the scope of the criminal case, I receive the same response saying that the trial is going on and that I should ask for the information to court; yet, the court seems to be not declined at disclosing the objective reality or giving me the opportunity of addressing questions for the clarification of the situation: that is, by a certain silent agreement I got deprived of all my rights, pointing out that I had originally been a wrongdoer in my country, as with my activities I had stuck the “saints” pockets, the stolen and looted property of theirs; that is  I crossed the  permissible line dictated them from above.

This kind of behaviour is an obvious violation of the right to be examined by an independent, impartial and unbiased court, and today, logically, I would have had to file a motion with the court on a  self-withdrawal of the judge. Still, I well understand that such criminal cases are initiated not in the investigative authorities and, unfortunately, judgments are not made in court, and the change of a judge does not play any role in the condition of such political persecution and that the change of a judge is merely a technical issue, which actually cannot lead to essential changes, as in our country judgments on such cases are made in the institution which appoints judges.

This is the reason why I do not file a motion on the self-withdrawal of the judge today, but I firmly record and declare that the judge obviously behaved himself in a biased, impartial, non-objective and, most important, non-impartial manner. In such circumstances, a judgment cannot be made for the sake of the Republic of Armenia, since today the Republic of Armenia needs to return the robbed and looted, rather than to punish a rights defender who has disclosed the robbed and looted, and it is not that such biased and not independent court is able to make a judgement and to decide the issue of my freedom, as, irrespective of my physical location, I am free and independent of acting, thinking and decision-making.

M.Poghosyan

15.01.2018