YEREVAN. – With such statements, the defendant in the criminal case into the beating of Lieutenant Colonel Ara Mkhitaryan in Yeghegnadzor, Armenia, is trying to avoid criminal liability. Mkhitaryan's lawyer Rafayel Amirkhanyan told this to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Speaking to reporters today, the defendant, Zaven Grigoryan, and his lawyer, Levon Sahakyan, claimed that Grigoryan was not there at the time of the incident and that the other defendant, his brother Harutyun Grigoryan, was alone.

"Harutyun Grigoryan was not alone during the incident," Amirkhanyan said. "He went up to his apartment, telephoned his friends and brother, everyone came, gathered, and then he went down."

The attorney said the number of Harutyun Grigoryan's friends has not been clarified yet, as there were 7 or 8 people.

“I insist that Trdat Sargsyan [the Vayots Dzor Province governor at the time] was also at the scene; there are witnesses who continue to claim that,” the lawyer added. "The video recordings are not of that day, and they cannot prove that Trdat Sargsyan was not at the scene."

Asked whether Ara Mkhitaryan was not sober at the time of the incident, Amirkhanyan said: "Ara Mkhitaryan was not sober, but that he was drunk is not true."

On March 6, the Criminal Court of Appeal granted the motion to release Zaven Grigoryan, a defendant in the criminal case into the beating of Aram Mkhitaryan.

Grigoryan was released on 1,500,000-dram bail.

Mkhitaryan has been in a coma for about six months.

The Investigative Committee of Armenia had stated that then governor of Vayots Dzor Province Trdat Sargsyan was not an eyewitness to the dispute that took place on September 17 of last year. However, the four military officers who witnessed the incident said that Sargsyan was at the scene and he followed the incident, not preventing it.

Harutyun Grigoryan, an assistant to the now former governor of Vayots Dzor, has been charged along the lines of the aforesaid case. Grigoryan's brother Zaven Grigoryan is also a defendant. One week after the incident, Trdat Sargsyan resigned as Vayots Dzor governor.