A drug case in Armenia usually starts with a stop in the street, a personal search, or a search of a home or car. What a person says and signs in the first hours often decides the charge. A drug charges lawyer checks every step from the first contact with the police. Advocate Mnatsakan Marukyan is a criminal defense lawyer in Yerevan. He defends people in drug cases at every stage, from the arrest to the Court of Cassation.
If you are arrested in a drug case
- Ask for a lawyer at once. You have the right to a lawyer of your choice from the moment of arrest.
- Stay silent until your lawyer arrives. An “explanation” given to settle things quickly often becomes the main evidence.
- Do not sign a protocol that does not match what happened. Write your objections in the protocol.
- Do not touch packages or items that the officers show you.
- Ask the officers to inform a relative. If you do not understand Armenian well, ask for an interpreter.
- Within 72 hours you must be released or brought before a court. Only a court can order detention.
More on the first steps: what to do if you are arrested.
Drug charges lawyer: lines of defense
Legality of the search and seizure
Advocate Marukyan checks whether the search had a lawful basis, who carried it out and whether a court decision was necessary. He compares the protocol with the video recordings and with the statements of the person and the witnesses. He checks how the substance was packed and sealed, and whether the package that reached the expert is the one that was seized. Evidence obtained with a serious breach of the law can be excluded. See also your rights during a police search.
Expert examination of the substance and its amount
The charge depends on what the substance is and how much of it there is. The expert establishes the type of the substance and its weight. The defense can put its own questions to the expert, challenge the method and ask for an additional or repeat examination. An error in the weight can change the legal qualification of the act.
Intent to sell or personal use
Selling drugs is punished much more severely than keeping them for personal use. The investigator often bases the intent to sell on indirect facts: the amount, the packaging, scales, messages in the phone. Each of these facts can have another explanation. The defense gives the court the full picture: whether the person uses drugs himself, where his money comes from and what the messages actually say.
Police provocation
Some cases start with a controlled purchase organized by the police. If a police agent pushed a person to a crime that he would not have committed otherwise, this is provocation. Under the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, evidence obtained through provocation cannot be the basis of a conviction. The defense asks for the documents of the operation and for the questioning of the agent.
Procedural violations
Rights that were not explained, a first questioning without a lawyer, no interpreter, missed deadlines: each of these can make evidence inadmissible. Such violations are also grounds for an appeal if the court of first instance does not take them into account.
Detention
In drug cases the investigator often asks the court for detention. Advocate Marukyan prepares the arguments for bail or another non-custodial measure: a permanent address, work, family, health and the person’s conduct after the arrest. More on this: pretrial detention.
How advocate Marukyan helps in a drug case
- He comes to the place of the search, the police station or the investigator at any hour.
- He is present at each questioning and investigative action.
- He studies the case file, the expert opinions and the recordings.
- He files motions to exclude evidence and to order new examinations.
- He defends the client at trial, in the Criminal Court of Appeal and in the Court of Cassation.
Advocate Marukyan works in Armenian, Russian and English. The first consultation is free. The office is at Athens street 3/3, Yerevan. Call +374 91 403961, or write on WhatsApp or Telegram. Advocate Marukyan is available 24/7 for arrests and searches.