Two Afghan Citizens Convicted for Illegally Crossing Turkish-Armenian Border

YEREVAN (Panorama.am) –The Court of General Jurisdiction of Ararat and Vayots Dzor Regions has recently issued a verdict regarding the case of illegally crossing the Turkey-Armenia border by two Afghan citizens. The two Afghan citizens Sediqhollah Alizadeh and Shokat Aminzai have been sentenced to three years in prison.

According to the indictment on 16 October 2015 the two men crossed Turkish-Armenian border near Ararat Province without any documents but they were apprehended by the Armenian border service officers.

Defendant Shokat Aminzai did not find himself guilty during both the preliminary investigation and the trial. According to his testimony in October 2015 he wanted to leave for Turkey to live there. For that reason he got acquainted with an Iranian citizen in Afghanistan, who assured him that he could take him to Turkey in exchange for $2500 USD.

He noted in the testimony that on 2 October 2015 he left for Afghanistan-Iran border in order to reach Turkey, where he met 15-20 other people who were also promised to cross the border of Turkey. Together with the mentioned people he illegally crossed the Iranian border and reached Iran-Turkey border 4 days later. Another group with 20 members joined them, and he got acquainted with two Afghan citizens.

On 5 October 2015, the Iranian guide explained him the direction of Turkish border noting that he would reach a river there to be crossed by swimming. He, together with another Afghan citizen Alizadeh crossed the Turkish border where they were apprehended by the Turkish border officers, but they manage to escape. After walking for a while they reached the river on the other side of which they noticed three police cars. After crossing the river he and Sediqhollah were caught by the Armenian officers.

The court considered that there were no circumstances aggravating the punishment of the two 21-year-old men and sentenced each of them to three years in prison.