The detention of businessman Karen Hakobyan was prolonged for another 2 months. The businessman's defense group issued a statement about this.
"We inform you that by the decision of RA Anti-Corruption Court Judge Vahe Dolmazyan in 2024 The detention of businessman Karen Hakobyan, who has been in illegal detention since September 20, has been extended for another 2 months. Vahe Dolmazyan did not justify in any way the necessity of prolongation of detention, nor the impossibility of using alternative restraint measures. Vahe Dolzmazyan did not refer at all to the legal and factual justifications expressed by the defense side in the 7-hour long court session and in the written position presented in advance. Instead, the court made very abstract and stereotypical assumptions about the possibility of Karen Hakobyan obstructing the proceedings, which according to the precedent decisions of both the European Court of Human Rights and the RA Court of Cassation are not sufficient to make a decision to extend detention (this was already the 2nd extension decision). . In a number of judgments of the European Court against Armenia, it is directly recorded that the presumption should always work in favor of a person's release, and overcoming it in the conditions of prolonged detention requires weighty facts, and in the case of Karen Hakobyan, they are completely absent.
It is also noteworthy that Vahe Dolmazyan extended the detention period of Karen Hakobyan, ignoring the important fact that at the extension session, the reasonable doubt regarding the commission of the crime attributed to her by Karen Hakobyan was thoroughly denied. Considering the pre-trial secrecy, at this stage the defense side refrains from referring to the substantive details of the case, but during the trial stage, in the conditions of a public trial, the public will also find out that the accusation against Karen Hakobyan is baseless, fictitious and illogical.
In this way, we can record that every subsequent arrest decision against Karen Hakobyan surpasses the previous one due to its groundlessness, but the businessman, who has never been offended before, has been illegally detained for about 130 days.
Today, the defense side filed an appeal against the decision to extend Vahe Dolmazyan's detention within the shortest time frame.
Let's remind that businessman Karen Hakobyan, who has never been convicted before, is accused of money laundering, but there is no evidence at the basis of the accusation and it is based solely on assumptions," the statement reads.
