Defense of Galstanyan and others calls for expert authentication of  evidence recordings

ArmInfo. On April 9, the trial against Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan and 17 of his supporters continued in Yerevan.

The hearing starteed with the defense objecting to the numerous  pieces of evidence presented by prosecutors, including telephone  recordings, which, however, lack expert opinions. The lawyers had  raised this issue previously, but at the evidentiary stage, it became   more urgent. Therefore, the defense demanded that the admissibility  of the evidence be determined before its consideration, not  afterward, as required by law. However, Judge Karen Farkhoyan ruled  that the two processes were not mutually exclusive, and that the  prosecution should work on substantiating the evidence provided

Bagrat Galstanyan, for his part, compared the situation to building a  house starting from the fifth floor without first building the  foundation. "I declare that I am not in these recordings," the  archbishop stated. A motion has also been submitted to the court to  hand over the entire collection of recordings obtained through  operational means to the defense. This motion will be considered by  the court at a later time.