“EVEN A MESSENGER ON A HORSE WOULD HAVE REACHED MOSCOW BY NOW”: ON THE LETTER REGARDING MASSACRE SUSPECT

02.20.2015 16:01 epress.am

The Union of Informed Citizens NGO claims that the Prosecutor’s Office
has violated the law by not providing the content of the General
Prosecutor Gevorg Kostanyan’s letter to his Russian counterpart asking
for the transfer of the Avetisyan family murder case to Armenian
law enforcement.

Yesterday, the General Prosecutor released a statement which stated
that “we do not consider it expedient to address, or furthermore
comment on suspicions and circulating absurd news related to the
matter of sending the letter or its content.” Note, that 2 days ago
the Zhoghovurd daily had published a letterby the Russian Prosecutor
which stated that they had not received a written document about the
murder suspect Russian soldier Valery Permyakov.

Turning to the current situation, the Union of Informed Citizens
underlined,”To put it mildly, it is strange that in the 21st century,
a letter sent on February 3 has not reached the Russian prosecutor
weeks later. Even a messenger on a horse from Yerevan would have
reached Moscow by now.

The General Prosecutor has violated the Law on Freedom of Information
by not providing a copy of the letter to the Union of Informed
Citizens, nor to multiple other media outlets.

Therefore, because the Armenian prosecutor, who broke the law by not
providing a copy of the letter as well as any proof of actually sending
it, the Armenian public has the right to claim that the prosecutor
is trying to conceal something… Otherwise it would be devoid of any
meaning to disregard the law to keep the letter’s content a secret.”

Note, that the Union of Informed Citizens NGO has appealed to the
Administrative Court demanding to make the General Prosecutor’s office
provide a copy of the letter.