"Ruben Vardanyan was denied access to case materials": lawyer

Attorney and representative of Armenian prisoners of war before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), Siranush Sahakyan, has provided clarifications regarding the egregious violations of Ruben Vardanyan’s rights taking place before the courts in Baku.
The human rights defender stated that, in flagrant breach of fair trial guarantees, particularly the principle of equality of arms and adversarial hearing, both the investigative authorities and the court have disregarded all motions filed by the defendant, conducting a one-sided, predetermined investigation. Moreover, the judges denied Ruben full access to the case materials, while simultaneously incorporating falsified records into the case file. Jurisdictional safeguards were also violated: the case was referred to a military tribunal despite the fact that Ruben is a civilian and has never held any affiliation with law enforcement or security services.
“As a result, the proceedings have created a fundamentally unfair scenario in which the defendant is stripped of any meaningful opportunity to contest the charges or assert his innocence. In such conditions, the very notion of a fair trial is reduced to a façade, entirely devoid of substance” Sahakyan emphasized.
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