The lawyers of Vahe Grigiryan have presented new documents which prove the innocence of the jailed lawyer. These facts prove that the legal proceedings against him were false. The prosecutor’s office has instituted legal proceedings against Vahe and wants to prove that he has made false documents and taken money. His lawyers and a lot of other people assure that they jailed him to prevent him from his professional work. He protects the interests of the citizens of Buzand street, who don’t want to leave their houses. Vahe Grigoryan has returned the money paid by “Crane” LTD to the government. In the result of his activities in the court the government returned money to his client (he proved that the company had paid 42 k USD ). The prosecutor’s office wants to prove that he has presented false signature of the director of that company and has taken this money. Vahe’s lawyers assure that he didn’t falsify those documents and those documents were signed by director of “Crane” company Gevorg Hakobyan, who is in the US now. And after getting this money back Vahe transferred the money of Mr. Hakobyan to the account he had informed and kept some money for his service and expenses during the judicial process (taxes).
The documents his lawyer presented contained the announcement of Mr. Hakobyan at the state-secretary of California and had the golden stamp of the state on it (as of July 18). In his announcement Mr. Hakobyan states that he knows Vahe Grigoryan as a trusted and honest person. Mr. Hakobyan presented the details of their agreement: he agreed with Grigoryan to send the relative stamped documents to Armenia in order to act as his representative in the court. After the judicial process Mr. Hakobyan applied to the finance and economy minister and asked to transfer the money to the account of his representative.
“Right judicial group” (the organization of Mr.Grigoryan) kept the money they had agreed beforehand (about 180 USD as tax and 730 USD for their service) and the rest of the money was exchanged into USD and transferred to the account in the relative bank in the USA. Concerning the fact that some people visited Mr.Hakobyan’s parents and said that Mr. Grigoryan had falsified Mr.Hakobyan’s signature, it is written in the statement that this is just slandering and an attempt to psychologically pressure the lawyer. The statement has all relative documents attached.
This case was appealed to the second instance court but without any results. This statement was presented there too. The lawyers said that the judges and prosecutor said that this document was false too. “If this document is false they must call the state-secretary of California and ask senator Arnold Schwarzenegger to come here as a witness and find out how these documents were falsified”, – said Lawyer Tigran Atanesyan.
Press secretary of prosecutor’s office Gourgen Ambaryan didn’t say anything concerning this announcement and said: “lawyers are free to say anything, they may lie”, -said Ambaryan.
“Lawyers for lawyers” international organization (Amsterdam) has applied to the RA general prosecutor and asked him to stop these proceedings and release him. They mentioned in the letter that there were enough facts to make sure that the witnesses were not right and that the main information was taken by applying pressure. They also mention there that this fact was directly connected with his professional work. The four families of Buzand street have applied to the justice minister and asked him to let Mr. Grigoryan protect their interests. The ministry rejected the application. They were complaining that a murderer could be nominated from the jail and be elected but their lawyer couldn’t protect their interests.
The prosecutor’s office has instituted legal proceedings against Mr. Grigoryan on the base of the testimonies of Mr.Hakobyan’s (Alexandr Hakobyan) father and his sister’s husband (Tigran Arakelyan). They had instituted the same proceedings against Alexandr Hakobyan too, but he is not jailed. The lawyers say that the fact that he is free is a result of his testimonies. During the press-conference the lawyers presented the applications of these two people to the ombudsman of Armenia. They wrote in the applications that these testimonies were taken by applying pressure.
Mr. Hakobyan wrote in his application that they had made him write those kinds of things by pressuring and saying that otherwise they would bring his son from the US and jail him. They also made pressure on his daughter’s husband. He also wrote that his son had learned about this and sent those documents. But the pressure continues. He also said: “On October 7 at 10:30 they called me to the general prosecutor’s office and made me stay there till evening at 19:00. They threatened me and yelled at me. And because of the fact that I am 65 and had an operation on my heart, and since my health condition is very bad and I take medicines, I got confused and didn’t understand what I was writing. I was in a very bad psychological condition and wrote whatever officer Nikoghosyan told me to write. The same day at about 19:00 they also asked me questions in the presence of Vahe Nikoghosyan and I insisted on that I had wrote everything what the officer had dictated under pressure. I assure that neither Vahe Grigoryan nor I have signed or stamped any documents on behalf of my son”.
During our conversation with Alexander Hakobyan he said that he had written this kind of application but refused to answer to our questions yet. Tigran Arakelyan said that he hadn’t written that kind of application and hung the phone. One of Griogoryan’s colleagues said that they didn’t publish those applications because the authors had asked them not to do so. But after Arakelyan and Hakobyan spoke against Grigoryan and they had to publish those applications.
Now there is a web site for Vahe Grigoryan’s protection: www.vahe-grigoryan.org .
This is not the first time that the authorities pressure lawyers that work against them. In 1995 a group of people beat two lawyers in the street. One of them is the head of Lawyers’ chamber, Rouben Sahakyan. In 2003 Hovik Arsenyan was obliged not to protect the interests of Armen Sargsyan (the brother of Vazgen Sargsyan and Aram Sargsyan).During that period the prosecutor’s office instituted legal proceedings against Arsenyan. According to the press this was done with the purposes of preventing him from his professional work.