The court in Yerevan began considering a criminal case initiated against 30-year-old Russian woman Elizaveta Danilycheva. She is accused of purchasing drugs with the intent to distribute on a particularly large scale, while she admits only purchasing without the intent of selling on a large scale, lawyer Artashes Oganesyan told Mediazona.
On June 24, Armenian police carried out a harsh raid at the Ban club in the center of Yerevan, where a wedding celebration was taking place that evening. “Ban” was opened by emigrants from Russia who moved to Yerevan after the start of the war. As a result of the raid, 38 people were detained. They were kept in police custody for more than a day, many complained of beatings and insults from the police.
When the police burst into the building, Danilycheva was in the room closer to the entrance. She was found to have 0.48 grams of methamphetamine on her. Danilycheva was immediately handcuffed, while the patrol officers who carried out the arrest did not explain her rights, the lawyer points out. After this she was arrested.
In the same room, police found a container in which 5.8 grams of marijuana were stored (in the Armenian Criminal Code this is considered a significant amount). Another package containing 1.47 grams of methamphetamine was found directly on the club premises. It was because of him that the size of the charge increased from large to especially large. Although 38 people were detained after the raid, all the drugs found that evening were blamed only on Danilycheva.
“She was charged with possession with intent to distribute even something she had not touched at all. But in fact, investigators were unable to find the people who were actually involved in the distribution. At the same time, besides Elizabeth, there are four more detainees who point to a certain person who brought and sold these drugs. But they couldn’t find him and, in principle, they didn’t try very hard to do it. They decided to get off easy and attribute everything to Elizabeth,” the lawyer explained.
After the arrest, Danilycheva recognized only the package with 0.48 grams that was found directly on her; she purchased it for personal use. The large package, due to which the charge was “particularly large in size,” was brought by another person involved in sales, the accused explained.
Oganesyan explained that under the article on acquisition with the intent to distribute on an especially large scale, the girl faces from six to 12 years. The defense insists on reclassifying the case to the article on possession without the intent of distributing on a large scale — the punishment for it ranges from a fine to three years in prison.
At the first hearing on the merits, the judge changed the measure of restraint to house arrest and bail. Danilycheva was in the isolation ward for more than six months.
In connection with Danilycheva’s case, the lawyer appealed to the Russian Ambassador to Armenia with a request to draw attention to the offenses that the Armenian police committed against Danilycheva and other Russians detained in the club. However, the appeals were ignored.
The raid in “Bath” took place against the backdrop of the proclamation of 2023 as the year of fight against illegal drug trafficking, which was proclaimed by Armenian law enforcement officers, the lawyer points out. “Under this slogan, some kind of chaos is now happening, as in the case of Elizabeth. At the same time, I know of cases when we used a preventive measure in the form of administrative supervision against large pawnbrokers who were caught red-handed, and she was immediately sent to the most severe measure, to arrest, although this was not some kind of egregious incident. At the same time, there was a lot of noise from law enforcement; the event itself was presented as a special police operation,” explains the defense lawyer. After the raid, a video was published on the YouTube channel of the Armenian police, which talked about drugs that, in principle, were not found in the club — for example, methadone.
Before her arrest, a graduate of the British School of Design and the Russian State University for the Humanities, Danilycheva was studying sound art and producing music; she also edited and wrote articles in Russian-language publications about culture.