Tamamyan-Shahinyan. A new document was discovered concerning the scandalous murder case.

The trial of the May 12, 2010 murder of 23-year-old Khachik Mkrtchyan concluded Friday at the Court of General Jurisdiction of First Instance of Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun Administrative Districts of Yerevan.

The judge ruled to drop the charges under RA Criminal Code Article 235 Section 1 (“Illegally procuring, transporting, keeping or carrying weapons, explosives or explosive devices”) against Arsen Aharonyan by granting him amnesty; however, the judge ruled to sentence Aharonyan to 5 years in prison under charges of RA Criminal Code Article 258 Section 4 (“Hooliganism combined with medium gravity damage to the health of the person”).

Recall, that Arsen Aharonyan, who is the nephew of former Arabkir district mayor Hovhannes Shahinyan, was initially accused of murder to which he admitted his guilt; however, he later retracted his testimony, after which Vram Baghdasaryan was accused of murder.

Note, during investigation of this case, former head of the RA Police General Department of Criminal Intelligence Hovhannes Tamamyan, “failing to do his duties and undertake necessary measures to reveal a crime,” was dismissed from his position and arrested.

The court issued a guilty sentence to Vram Baghdasaryan for murder and sentenced him to 14 years’ imprisonment. Other accused, Petros Grigoryan and Davit Sandaljyan, which were named as accessories to the crime, were granted amnesty and dismissed from the court.

The remaining two accused, Hayk Sandaljyan and Artur Pokharyan were sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment.

Prior to the ruling being issued, the youth said their final words, asking the court to issue a fair ruling. Vram Baghdasaryan said he did not commit the crime he was being accused of.

Baghdasaryan’s attorneys said they will be taking the case to the appeals court.

“Without evidence, without justification, they imprison a man for 14 years. And this is considered a shameful trial. An unjust court issued an unjust ruling,” said one of Baghdasaryan’s attorneys, Gayane Khachatryan.

On today`s press conference it was announced that Vram Baghdasaryan`s lawyers found and published a document which proved that he hadn`t committed this murder. It was stated today by Helsinki Association President Mikayel Danielyan and lawyer Gayane Khachatryan. The latters presented the document which Vram Baghdasaryan handed to them on Dec. 6. 

Due to Mikayel Danielyan`s words, after the murder Arabkir district mayor Hovhannes Shahinyan called Vram and offered to take the murder case on him. If Vram did it he would be freed from prison after two years.

Shahinyan told Vram that he owed a big sum of money to Hovhannes Tamamyan (former head of the RA Police General Department of Criminal Intelligence). Then added that he would not give Tamamyan the money and with this amount would solve Vram`s problems. Later he presented Vram a document written by him - Vram`s self-confession - which Vram didn`t sign.

Danielyan mentioned that the next day when Baghdasaryan came to Shahinyan, he managed to take the document from the table which he had not signed and by chance together with it took another document in which was stated that Shahinyan had borrowed 32.000.000 AMD from Tamamyan which he should have returned back in 2008. But Shahinyan hadn`t paid back the money by 2010, moreover he used that fact against Tamamyan.

To note, when Shahinyan met with RA president, he also assured the latter that the real murderer was Vram Baghdasaryan and Tamamyan, taking money, just covered the case, stated Danielyan.  

Helsinki Association also informed that they were going to send an open letter on Baghdasaryan`s case to President Serzh Sargsyan with the hope that the latter would get acquainted with the content of their complaint and would take measures on the case to be objectively investigated.