The Criminal Court of Appeal of Armenia today rejected the motion filed by the attorney of Mayor of Sisian and deputy of the opposition ‘Armenia’ faction of the National Assembly Artur Sargsyan against the decision of the Yerevan court of general jurisdiction to choose arrest as a pre-trial measure against him, meaning Sargsyan will remain under arrest. This is what Sargsyan’s attorney Emin Khachatryan said during a conversation with Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“We didn’t expect anything else from the court. The judge came with a calm look on his face and announced the conclusion, but the decision hasn’t been presented yet,” the attorney stated, adding that the appeal against Sargsan’s arrest had also been inscribed by hand. Khachatryan said he had requested evidence from the court to show that it was inscribed in alphabetical order, but there was no response.

Khachatryan said he is preparing to appeal the court’s decision to the Court of Cassation. “The only problem is time. The court has to send us the decision in the course of three days so that we can appeal it, and the Court of Cassation may accept the decision in the course of two months. In any case, we don’t have great expectations from the Court of Cassation either, but we need to appeal to all the courts in Armenia before applying to the European Court of Human Rights,” he said.

Artur Sargsyan is charged with abuse of official powers and entry of obviously false information or records into official documents, falsification, making scratches or other numeric inscriptions or modifications by an official for mercenary purposes or other personal or collective interests, as well as drawing up and handover of false documents.