TRIAL LAWYER ‘BULLIED’ BY DISTRICT PROSECUTOR
By Karine Kalantarian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Oct 30 2006
Armenia’s bar association demanded on Monday tough disciplinary action
against a district prosecutor in Yerevan who allegedly intimidated
and threatened to imprison a trial lawyer representing a criminal
suspect. The Office of the Prosecutor-General was quick to reject
the demand.
The attorney, Liana Balian, says that Gevorg Tovmasian, the chief
prosecutor of the city’s Avan and Nor Nork districts, and two other
law-enforcement officials visited her on Saturday after she refused
to obey his verbal orders to come to his office.
"Without a court order or any other legal grounds, they burst into my
apartment and started threatening me in the presence of my parents and
my daughter," Balian told RFE/RL. She claimed that Tovmasian shouted
abuse and threatened to prosecute and beat her if she continues to
vigorously defend a man charged with rape.
The suspect, Norayk Rubenian, was taken into custody earlier this year
despite protesting his innocence. In a rare setback for prosecutors,
Balian succeeded in having a district court release him on bail on
Friday, the day before the alleged incidents. However, the court
allowed the prosecutors on Sunday to again arrest the suspect, citing
"additional accusations" leveled against him.
The lawyer’s allegations were picked up by the leadership of Armenia’s
Chamber of Advocates that held an emergency meeting on Monday and
demanded that Tovmasian be brought to account. "Why did the prosecutor
go to the lawyer’s home?" its chairman, Ruben Sahakian, said. "What
was he doing there on Saturday?"
But the Office of the Prosecutor-General defended the prosecutor’s
actions, saying that he visited Balian to "explain" that she and
her client have to cooperate with the ongoing criminal investigation
into the rape allegedly committed in 2004. "The district prosecutor
acted within the boundaries of his powers," a spokeswoman for the
law-enforcement agency, Sona Truzian, told RFE/RL. She said the
suspect was planning to flee the country and therefore has to be kept
in pre-trial detention.
Acquittal of individuals charged with various crimes is extremely rare
in Armenia, with judges siding with prosecutors in the vast majority
of cases. According to official statistics, Armenian courts handed
down some 1,500 verdicts on criminal cases in the first half of this
year and only four of them cleared defendants of any wrongdoing.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
