Advisor to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia Gor Abrahamyan has posted the following on his Facebook page:

“Since there is great public interest, and I am receiving many questions from journalists, I would like to inform that the Prosecutor General’s Office has received and examined the decision of the first instance court of general jurisdiction of Yerevan on the petition submitted by the Investigative Department of the National Security Service to select arrest as a pre-trial measure for Gagik Tsarukyan.

Based on the decision, first, I would like to state that denial of the petition is not due to a substantiated suspicion, but concerns the grounds for selecting arrest as a pre-trial measure.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the court has overlooked and improperly assessed the substantiations submitted through a petition and related to the grounds for selection of arrest as a pre-trial measure and the risks related to Gagik Tsarukyan’s influence, contacts and financial resources.

Therefore, since the court has rendered a groundless and unlawful judicial act, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia will definitely appeal the decision to the Criminal Court of Appeal of Armenia.”