The Criminal Court of Appeal of Armenia has satisfied the appeal of the Prosecutor General’s Office and, overturning the verdict of the Court of the Kentron and Nork-Marash Communities of Yerevan of 11 June 2008 regarding Hovhannes Ghazaryan, has acquitted the latter due to absence of corpus delicti, as Advisor to the Prosecutor General of Armenia Gor Abrahamyan informed on his Facebook page.

“By the verdict of 2008, Hovhannes Ghazaryan was found guilty of part 1 of Article 316 of the Criminal Code of Armenia (violence or threat of violence, not dangerous for life or health, against a representative of authorities or close relatives, concerned with performance of official duties, as well as hindrance to the representative of authorities in the execution of duties under law) and was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of one year (the punishment imposed on him wasn’t applied conditionally, and a probation period for a term of two years was prescribed). Attorneys appealed the verdicts to the Criminal Court of Appeal, but the Court dismissed the proceedings under the appeal and reasoned that the accused-on-trial and their attorneys hadn’t shown up.

This is the third satisfied appeal filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia to the Court of Cassation or Criminal Court of Appeal under the cases regarding the events that took place during the period of the presidential elections in 2008,” he wrote.