For smuggled Glock American will sit down for 8 years

The Khimki City Court of the Moscow Region sentenced 37-year-old American Andre Khachaturian, who was detained on his way to Armenia for smuggling weapons and ammunition, to eight years in a penal colony. In the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport, they found a combat pistol with cartridges that was not properly issued during landing. He will serve his sentence in a penal colony.

The case of an ethnic Armenian living in the United States, Andre Khachaturian, went to Judge Anna Sotnikova. She gained notoriety after she sentenced Olympic basketball champion Brittney Griner to nine years in prison for drug smuggling in August 2022. However, already in December of the same year, the athlete was exchanged for the Russian Viktor Bout. Even the same prosecutor, Nikolay Vlasenko, took part in the Khachaturian case.

During the debate of the parties, which took place on the morning of February 21, he asked to recognize the defendant guilty under two articles of the Criminal Code of Russia: in smuggling firearms and ammunition (part 1 of article 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, involves a punishment of three to seven years in prison) , as well as in the illegal transportation of weapons and ammunition (part 1 of article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – up to three years in prison).

For smuggling, the state prosecutor suggested appointing the defendant a term of six years in prison, and for illegal arms trafficking – four years. According to the totality of the crimes committed, by partial addition of punishments, the final term is determined in the form of nine years of imprisonment in a general regime colony. The prosecutor noted that the defendant partially admitted his guilt.

In turn, his lawyer Igor Bushmanov told Business FM that this was not the case. According to him, Khachaturian fully admitted his guilt in arms smuggling (part 1 of article 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) at the final stage of the investigation during the trial. He did not plead guilty only under Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which, in the opinion of the defense, was unnecessarily imputed, since Khachaturian did not cross the border with the Russian Federation, and he was issued a Russian visa after his arrest for the purpose of criminal prosecution. The lawyer in this part asked his client to be acquitted “due to the absence of corpus delicti in the actions.”

Under the article “arms smuggling”, he asked the court to change the category of the crime from grave to moderate and to impose a punishment below the lower limit than Article 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides. Bushmanov urged the court to limit the time that his client has already served in a pre-trial detention center, taking into account “the confession of guilt, repentance and the serious illness that he suffers from.” What sick his client, he did not reveal.

Khachaturyan has been in the pre-trial detention center since the end of December 2021. Since a day in an isolation cell is equal to two days in a general regime colony, by now the American has actually served two years.

A US citizen traveling from Los Angeles to Yerevan in transit through Moscow was detained on December 26, 2021 at Sheremetyevo. Customs officers confiscated a Glock 17 pistol and ammunition from him. According to Igor Bushmanov, his client had a permit to carry weapons in America and he was “used to carry a gun with him.” Khachaturyan claimed that when boarding an Aeroflot flight to the United States, he allegedly presented a case with a pistol to the airline employees, who sealed it with a tag and put it in their luggage. At the same time, they did not give him any documents in his hands, except for the usual luggage receipt. When Khachaturian was shown his case in Moscow, there was no tag on it. The lawyer called the situation “non-standard”. Khachaturian, who worked as a foreman in a construction company, flew to Yerevan to meet the relatives of his future wife.

The defendant himself in the last word thanked “the prosecutor and the entire judicial system” and asked the court “to make an honest and fair decision.”

The judge found him guilty on both charges and sentenced him to eight years in a penal colony. The defense promised to appeal the verdict to the Moscow Regional Court, regarding it as “excessively harsh and not meeting the goals of punishment.”