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Another investigator to study case involving A1+ journalist

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On December 20, Marine Khachatryan, a journalist working for A1+ Company, will be interrogated for a second time as an aggrieved party in a case of violence against a journalist. Earlier, she submitted a motion to General Prosecutor Gevorg Kostanyan to replace V. Avetisyan, a senior investigator of the Special Investigation Service, by another investigator. Het motion was upheld.  The senior investigator had made illegal decisions in relation to the case due to his biased attitude. In its recent statement, the Prosecutor General’s Office said the pre-investigative body, the Special Investigation Service, conducted the investigation in gross violation of procedure. In particular, the SIS failed to recognize Marine Khachatryan as an aggrieved party in the case, thereby depriving her of the opportunity to exercise her rights enshrined in Articles 59 and 247 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The case will be examined by another investigator. On September 9, after members of the Hakaharvats (Counterblow) street art group hung a banner reading “Hello Rob” (Rob referring to Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan) on the National Assembly’s main gate, the chief of the NA security Karen Hayrapetyan came out and tore down the banner. Then he hit A1+’s journalist Marine Khachatryan, who was covering the incident, on the arm, causing her to drop her recording device – iPad – to the ground. A case was filed with the SIS regarding the incident but the latter quashed criminal proceedings against the security official who used violence against the journalist. Hayrapetyan later said that Khachatryan wasn’t wearing her press badge and he assumed she was a member of the Counterblow group.