Court marshals fail to find victim in Mardiros Demerchyan's case

In Sochi, the trial in the case against builder Mardiros Demerchyan is postponed because of the absence of victim Nikolai Krasko, the general director of the "Dauriya Stroi" Company. Court marshals reported on impossibility to find the victim. The defence treated "the absence of the victim as a good reason for closure of the case."

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Mardiros Demerchyan, who worked at the construction of Olympic facilities, complained that after his detention on June 12, 2013, on suspicion of stealing building materials, he had been subjected to torture. On September 29, it became known that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) communicated the complaint filed by Mardiros Demerchyan.

Earlier, it has been found out that Nikolai Krasko is employed as the general director of 66 companies and that the "Dauriya Stroi" Company is not registered in any public institution.

Advocate Boichenko has declared that he did not agree to the consideration of the case without the victim and offered to "return the case to the prosecutor for elimination of deficiencies." The judge postponed the court hearing until October 25.

Leonid Erchenko, an independent advocate, has noted that "in the current situation, the court violates the defendant's rights."

"In case if the public prosecutors fail to submit evidence to give the defendant an opportunity to challenge the victim's testimony during the investigation stage, then the court cannot read out the victim's written testimony, since it would be a violation of the defendant's rights," said the independent advocate.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.