Atilla Çiçek, and Hussein Yıldırım, Kurds by nationality, have been wanted in the Republic of Armenia since August.

In addition to the statement released by the RA Ministry of Justice regarding Atilla Çiçek and Husein Yıldırım, who are Kurdish nationals, we report the following.

The Court of General Jurisdiction of Syunik issued a guilty verdict on the persons mentioned in the verdict of January 20, 2022, sentencing Atila Çiçek to 7 years of imprisonment, confiscation of property of 5.700 USD, and Hussein Yıldırım to 7 years of imprisonment,  by confiscation of property of 3 million Iranian Rials.

On February 23, 2022, on the basis of the appeal of the verdict, the RA Criminal Court of Appeal partially satisfied the appeal, made a decision to overturn the sentence in terms of punishment and amend the annulled part, imposing a final sentence of 5 years in prison, and the type of punishment in confiscation of property was left unchanged. At the same time, in accordance with the relevant article of the Criminal Code, the punishment was not applied conditionally to them, a probationary period of 3 years was set.

The restraining order against both was lifted by the court and they were released from the courtroom.

We would like to emphasize that a cassation appeal was filed against the court act by the Court of Appeals, both by the RA General Prosecutor's Office and by the defense attorneys of the defendants, but the appeals were rejected.

Accordingly, the corresponding judicial act entered into force and on July 28, 2022, the execution order and a copy of the judicial act were sent to the Probation Service, taking into account that in the Republic of Armenia, in case of non-conditional punishment, the supervision over the probationary period is carried out by the service of the Probation Service of the Ministry of Justice. 

Of course, the implementation of supervision implies the execution of actions by the probation officer: finding the person, notifying him, explaining his rights and responsibilities, taking him into the register, drawing up a supervision plan, etc.

After receiving the court order, the Syunik regional body of the Probation Service tried to find out the whereabouts of the mentioned persons in order to ensure the execution of the mentioned actions, but as a result of not finding them, on August 8, 2022, it submitted a motion to the court to announce the search for Atilla Çiçek and Husein Yıldırım.

On August 22, 2022, the Court of General Jurisdiction of Syunik granted the petition, finding that the mentioned people are apparently avoiding control, all means of finding them have been exhausted, a search warrant was announced for them, and the execution of the decision was assigned to the RA Police Syunik department in Goris.

We announce that the Ministry of Justice does not have any information about the whereabouts of the wanted persons.