The mock trial of Ruben Vardanyan will continue today in the Baku Military Court.
The website freearmenianprisoners.com publishes brief information about what happened at the hearing after each court session, which is made available to Vardanyan’s family through a local lawyer.
At the previous session, the prosecutor read the “indictment,” according to which the charges against Vardanyan date back to 1988, when he was still a student at Moscow State University.
All of Vardanyan’s defense motions were rejected, in particular, they related to the provision of copies of all written documents and materials used by the prosecutor, the provision of written documents and materials in Russian or English, the provision of access to videos attached as “evidence,” and the provision of an Internet connection to access the materials necessary for the defense.
It is noted that so far less than five percent of the indictment and “evidence” have been translated for Ruben Vardanyan.
And his local lawyer was able to study only 20 percent of the materials.
At the previous hearing, Ruben Vardanyan’s defense attorney filed a motion to challenge the court-appointed translator after serious discrepancies were found in the documents he translated, such as references to Belarusian legislation in the translated decision of the preliminary hearing.
Although the motion was rejected, the court ordered that an accurate translation be provided. Ruben Vardanyan’s lawyer also filed a motion to challenge the judicial panel.
The judicial panel announced that this motion will be considered only when the state prosecutor completes the publication of the charges.
The publication of the “charges” will continue at today’s hearing.
Let us recall that Ruben Vardanyan’s case is separate. The next hearing of the case of the former presidents of Artsakh and others is on February 11.
