THREE COUNTERARGUMENTS QUESTIONING PROSECUTOR-GENERAL’S LETTER

11:36 | February 20,2015 | Politics

The Union of Informed Citizens has issued a statement saying the
Prosecutor’s Office of Armenia refuses to provide them a copy of the
letter Armenian Prosecutor-General sent to his Russian counterpart,
asking Russia to extradite a Russian soldier accused of murdering
seven members of an Armenian family in Gyumri.

“On February 19, the Prosecutor’s Office issued a statement saying
that the publications questioning the Armenian Prosecutor General’s
letter to his Russian counterpart are ‘absurd.’

In the letter, Prosecutor-General Gevorg Kostanyan requested his
Russian counterpart, Yury Chayka, to extradite the Russian soldier
Valeri Permyakov who is accused of murdering the seven-member
Avetisyan family in Gyumri, saying that the high-profile case should
be transferred to Armenian jurisdiction.

It is strange to hear that in the 21st century a letter sent
on February 3 could not have reached the addressee [Russian
Prosecutor-General] in several weeks. Even a messenger sent to Moscow
from Yerevan on a horse would have got to the destination by now.

According to the official report, in his letter Gevorg Kostanyan
referred to a provision of the Armenian-Russian agreement which allows
the refusal of the request. There is no reference to the previsions of
the law which will oblige the Russian side to extraditethe Russian
side.

The Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Armenia has violated the
RA Law on Freedom of Information by refusing to provide the copy of
the letter to the Union of Informed Citizens and other media.

As long as the Prosecutor’s Office, in violation of the law, does not
give a copy of the letter or produces any evidence proving that the
letter has been sent to the Russian side, Armenians have the right
to claim that the Prosecutor’s Office is concealing some details from
the public, otherwise, they would reveal the content of the letter.

On February 13, the Union of Informed Citizens requested the
Administrative Court to force the Prosecutor’s Office to give us a
copy of the controversial letter. Let the public draw conclusions
from the aforesaid absurdity,” reads the statement.

Permyakov has been kept under arrest at the Gyumri-based Russian
military base ever since being arrested, for the murder of a
seven-member family in Gyumri – Seryozha Avetisyan, his wife Hasmik,
daughter Aida, son Armen, daughter-in-law Araksya, two-year-old
granddaughter Hasmik and 6-month-old baby boy Seryozha, who died of
his stab injuries a week later.

Kostanyan pledged to appeal to the chief Russian prosecutor when he
was confronted by angry demonstrators in Gyumri on January 15. They
were incensed by his earlier statement that the Armenian side is not
seeking Permyakov’s handover because Russia’s constitution forbids
the extradition of Russian citizens to foreign states.