Defendant in Illegal Adoption Case to Remain at Liberty

The defendant A. G. in the illegal adoption case will remain at liberty. In response to a question from ‘Haykakan Zhamanak’, her lawyer Lusine Martirosyan stated that the Court of Appeals, chaired by Judge Sergey Marabyan, made this decision after returning from the consultation room today, thereby rejecting the Prosecutor's appeal against the decision not to place A. G. in custody.

The media notes that the defense team has not yet received the court's decision, but based on the proceedings of the appeal, they are confident that it was rejected due to the absence of reasonable suspicion. Thus, there is currently no preventive measure selected against her.

It is worth recalling that A. G.’s charges were aggravated on February 20, with an indictment brought under the third part of the same article instead of the second and third points of the previous Article 167, which relates to the illegal separation or exchange of a child by an organized group that negligently leads to the child's death or other serious consequences. After this, the investigative body submitted a request to the court to place A. G. in custody, which was rejected by Judge Tatevik Grigoryan of the Yerevan General Jurisdiction Court.

In relation to this case, there are four more individuals with the status of defendants: the Director of the ‘Republican’ Maternity Hospital Razmik Abrahamyan, Deputy Director Arshak Jerjeryan, former Director of the ‘Yerevan Baby House’ Liana Karapetyan, and citizen Diana Grigoryan. None of them are currently in custody.

The criminal case pertains to incidents of illegal adoptions of children from Armenia by foreign citizens during the years 2016-2018, which the National Security Service announced on November 14.