Mediamax, Armenia
Feb 13 2009

Armenian, Russian chief prosecutors sign cooperation memo

Yerevan, 13 February: Prosecutor Generals of Armenia and Russia Aghvan
Hovsepyan and Yuriy Chayka signed a Memorandum in Yerevan today on the
main directions for cooperation for 2009-2011 between the two
countries’ Prosecutor General’s Offices.

Mediamax reports that, according to the signed document, the main
directions for cooperation for the nearest three years will be
protection of human rights and the freedoms of citizens outside the
criminal-legal field of the activity of the Prosecutor’s Office,
prevention of corruption, struggle against terror, transnational
organize crime, human trafficking, illegal turnover of armament,
narcotic and psychotropic substances and their precursors, fulfilment
of international agreements on issues of extradition, rendering legal
assistance concerning criminal cases, as well as revelation,
withdrawal, division of revenues, gained by illegal means.

As the Prosecutor General of Armenia Aghvan Hovsepyan noted, this is
already the third similar document, signed between the departments of
the two countries. "Earlier, a program of joint measures was also
signed, which is in process of successful realization by the
prosecutor’s offices of the two countries," Hovsepyan stated, noting
that from the point of view of cooperation, the criminal world is more
active than the law-enforcement bodies.

Answering the questions of journalists, Prosecutor General of Russia
Yuriy Chayka admitted that there are problems concerning extremism and
xenophobia in Russia. He informed that there are corresponding
subdivisions set up in the Prosecutor General’s Office and the
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, which jointly and by
coordinated effort deal with the given problems.

Yuriy Chayka noted growth of crimes, realized basing on [committed on
the basis of] xenophobia, which require increase of efforts of the
law-enforcement bodies to oppose those phenomena, and the President of
Russia has given the corresponding orders. At that he admitted that
there is a necessity to reconsider the court practice concerning such
cases.