The investigation of the controversial criminal case against the environmental activist Mariam Sukhudyan accused of slandering the teacher of a boarding school is still in process based on the testimony of a student.
In 2008 Sukhudyan, a 29 year old member of the S.O.S. Teghut NGO provided video materials to the Armenian Public Television, where a former pupil at Nubarashen Boarding School N11 for mentally retarded children said she was suffering sexual harassment from an Armenian language teacher, Levon Avagyan. (Sukhudyan managed to make a video footage while she was working as a volunteer at the school within the framework of the United Nations educational program).
The aired footage stirred society and a criminal case was instituted against the teacher. However, later the student withdrew her testimony, saying that “everything told by her in Mariam’s video footage about sexual harassment towards her by one of the boarding school teachers was not true and that she lied at Mariam’s instigation.”
Sukhudyan was charged with ‘slander’. Later the charges were changed into “false betrayal”, on October 21, however changing back to ‘slander’.
One of Sukhudyan’s supporters (who was a part of the volunteer team working at the school) submitted to the investigation department a telephone conversation with the student previously interviewed by Mariam. (The student was recognized by her voice known from her interview to Sukhudyan, which was aired by Public Television.)
In the conversation it becomes clear that the supporter was trying to convince the girl not to shield either the director of the school or the teacher who later submitted his resignation letter.
Sukhudyan’s defense was granted an opportunity to file motions to the RA Police’s Erebuni district’s investigation department. Her attorney Nona Galstyan told ArmeniaNow that within the defined timeframe they submitted four motions asking to drop the charges, call to account the teacher of Nubarashen boarding school, and not discount the telephone conversation as testimony.
According to Galstyan, the investigation of the first and second motions were postponed, however the telephone conversation has been accepted as evidence.
Attorney Galstyan says that on November 20 Sukhudyan has to go to the investigation department of Erebuni district based on the earlier received notice.
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