“RF President’s Speaker’s statement does not comply with the requirement of Clause 5 of the international treaty signed by Armenia and the Russian Federation”, assured lawyer Nikolay Baghdasaryan in the interview with Aravot.am. Note that while people in Armenia are discussing the issue of whether the trial of heinous murder will be held by Armenian or Russian legislation, and Gyumri people are waiting for the Prosecutor General Gevorg Kosyanyan apply to the Russian General Prosecutor on this matter, the answer to the question is voiced in Moscow through the mouth of RF President Vladimir Putin’s press spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. “There will be a Russian trial and for such a monstrous crime, Russian law is absolutely merciless.”
The Armenian lawyer substantiates that the Russian laws and jurisdiction implies exclusively to the cases provided for by Clause 5 of “The Agreement on Matters of Jurisdiction and Mutual Legal Assistance Relating to the Russian Military Base Stationed in the Territory of the Republic of Armenia”, which is effective between the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation, and details, “This clause provides that the perpetrator and the one against whom the offense was committed, these subjects should be serving in the Russian military base and their family members. If a crime is committed in the territory of the Russian base, which is not directed against Russia, but our citizen, this case shall be tried in given territory by RA legislation and by our government and law enforcement officials. In this case, the agreement does not grant territorial immunity to the Russian base. The case is deliberately messed up by some lawyers to cause such a situation. The case shall be investigated by Russian law enforcers for several categories, however, murdering is not among them. If our lawyers had explained this clause clearly that it is written not in the territory but the legislation of the Russian Federation implies to specific persons and specific crimes, while these exceptions do not apply to murder, accordingly, the person located in given territory is not protected by the Russian Constitution, such a situation would not have happened. But instead, an intentional simple thing, which even a university student can explain, is deliberately distorted. There is no contradiction between this Agreement and our legislation.”
We asked human rights activist Artak Zeynalyan whether the future course of events is predetermined by the statement of RF president’s press spokesperson, Mr. Zeynalyan stated, “If a person is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation, the case will be investigated according to the legislation of the Russian Criminal Code. And if the Russian citizen was detained by us, then the trial would be carried out by RA laws. The problem here is that the Russian border guards had no right to detain the perpetrator and not to handover to Armenia’s law enforcement agencies; in this case, regardless of who says this, the Russian president’s press spokesperson or not, it should have been so.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
