YEREVAN, OCTOBER 9, NOYAN TAPAN. The defence lawyers of Zhirayr Sefilian and Vardan Malkhasian have applied to the Armenian justice minister with the request to examine the issue of inaction of "Kentron" penitentiary's administration, NT correspondent was informed by Mushegh Shushanian, the lawyer of V. Malkhasian. Earlier Mushegh Shushanian and Ara Zakarian, lawyer of Z. Sefilian, have stated at a press conference that they applied to "Kentron" penitentiary's administration with the request to release their clients ahead of time but the administration did not submit an application to the independent interdepartmntal commission in order to discuss this issue. The coordinator of the civil initiative "Defence of Liberated Territories" Zhirayr Sefilian (he was found guilty of illegal possession of arms) has served more than half of his sentence, while member of the "Homeland and Honor" party's political board Vardan Malkhasian (found guilty of making public calls for seizure of state power) has served over 2/3 of his sentence. The defence lawyers said that the RA Constitutional Court on October 12 will hear lawyer Hayk Alumian's application on recognizing the norms establishing the order of releasing the defendants conditionally ahead of time as contradicing the Constitution of the RA. In their words, if the Constitutional Court recognizes these norms as anticonstitutional, they will have an opportunity to apply to court with the complaint about the inaction of the penitentiary. A. Zakarian and M. Shushanian noted that they intend to dispute the ruling of the Criminal Appeal Court, which left the punishment imposed on Z. Sefilian and V. Malkhasian unchanged (18 months and two years respectively), while the imprisonment term of Vahan Aroyan accused of illegal possession of arms and ammunition was extended by 6 months to 2 years. The lawyers, in particular, are going to present sentences on similar cases - with lighter punishment.

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