Lawyer: Decision on Vardan Petrosian’s detention is unlawful

The decision to detain actor Vardan Petrosian has no legal grounds, Vardan Petrosian’s lawyer, Nikolai Baghdasarian, told the correspondent of Aysor.am.

“I gave a copy of Vardan Petrosian’s passport to the investigator and told him that V. Petrosian’s sister signed an agreement with me, according to which I shall represent Vardan Petrosian’s interests as he is unable to give evidence now. I asked the investigator to wait for a week until the actor recovers. But the investigator chose not to wait. After summoning V. Petrosian as a witness, the investigator took a decision about his detention based on the evidence of one side. That is, Vardan Petrosian had no time to give evidence as a witness,” the lawyer noted.

He considered the planned expert examinations illegal too because V. Petrosian has not been questioned yet.

According to the lawyer, he intends to appeal against the decision. “At the moment Vardan Petrosian is in Armed Medical Center. He is kept there under police surveillance, as a suspect, but I don’t think that he will be arrested after being discharged from the hospital as he has health problems,” Nikolai Baghdasarian said.

In his words, he didn’t speak with V. Petrosian yet as he considers it inexpedient to meet with him in such a medical state.
Let us remind you that around 10:10 pm on October 20 a BMW and a VAZ-21214 collided on Yeghvard-Yerevan Highway. The driver and six passengers of VAZ car received injuries and were hospitalized. Two of them – Edgar and Edward Hakobians died in the hospital.

A criminal case was opened under the Criminal Code’s Article 242 part 3 – violation of traffic rules, resulting in negligent homicide of two or more people. The preliminary investigation body took a decision to detain Vardan Petrosian.