A Yerevan court sentenced Russian émigré Elizaveta Danilicheva, 30, to six years in prison for acquiring cannabis and methamphetamine for sale in an especially large amount.[1] The conviction rested on the drugs found at the club: 5.8 g of marijuana in a thermos, about 1.5 g of methamphetamine left on a table and the 0.48 g of methamphetamine found on her, all attributed to her.[2]

Danilicheva said she admitted only the packet found on her and never touched the drug on the table, while her lawyer said the police raid video shown to the defence revealed the officers had lied and that witnesses were her four friends in the room.[3] If the sentence stands, the months she already spent under arrest leave her 4 years and 8 months still to serve.[3] Her lawyer Artashes Oganesyan said the Yerevan first-instance general jurisdiction court, whose ruling the defence is appealing, gave her the minimum term under the charge.[3]

Police detained Danilicheva and 37 other visitors at the Ban club in the early hours of 24 June 2023 and took them first to the Arabkir police station and then to the Investigative Committee.[3] She spent nine months in the Abovyan women’s prison, Armenia’s only women’s jail, and several more months under house arrest, and now lives in Yerevan under an order not to leave the city.[3] At the raid, in the back room where Danilicheva was sitting, police found a package with about 1.5 g of methamphetamine, bar scales and a thermos holding 5.8 g of marijuana.[3] Danilicheva said she never sold or bought drugs, that acquaintances gave her substances and that she asked a man who came into the room to share some with her.[3]

According to Novaya Gazeta’s interviews, witnesses named a real dealer who had brought the drugs, but investigators ignored the information and made no attempt to find him.[3] At least ten detainees say they were beaten that night, some kicked, including a witness whose medical report was given to Novaya Gazeta.[3] Danilicheva said a police officer who told her he did not beat women turned and struck her in the face, saying she was killing Armenian children.[3] Rights defender Eduard Danielyan told Novaya Gazeta that cases concerning torture and inhuman treatment by police in Armenia are rarely carried to the end.[3]