NEWSPAPER DEMANDS CRIMINAL CASE AGAINST SARKISIAN BROTHER
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
May 24 2006

An opposition-linked newspaper demanded on Wednesday that Armenian
law-enforcement authorities launch criminal proceedings against
a controversial brother of Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian who
reportedly verbally abused and threatened one of its journalists.

Taguhi Tovmasian of the “Iravunk” bi-weekly reported last week that
Aleksandr “Sashik” Sarkisian clashed with several reputed crime figures
during a birthday party at one of Yerevan’s expensive restaurants
earlier this month. Tovmasian says Sarkisian confronted her in the
Armenian parliament on Tuesday to express his fury with the article
and demand that she disclose its source. She says he threatened to
create “problems” for her after she refused to do that.

In separate letters to the police, the Prosecutor-General’s Office
and the National Security Service (NSS), the “Iravunk” management
said all of this is sufficient grounds for a criminal case against
the influential businessman and member of Armenia’s parliament. It
also demanded that the law-enforcement agencies ensure the physical
security of its young female employee.

“He [Sarkisian] wants to know the source? I am the source,” Hayk
Babukhanian, the “Iravunk” editor-in-chief, told RFE/RL.

Tovmasian also struck a defiant note. “Sashik Sarkisian cared not so
much about the veracity of the information as its source,” she said.

“He was endlessly making threatens like ‘If you don’t name the source,
you’ll have problems; you know who I am.'”

“He didn’t care whether or not what I reported was true,” she added.

“This only shows that what I wrote was true. It can be said that I
rubbed salt against his wounds with that article. He proved this with
his brazen behavior.”

“Iravunk,” which is linked to a small opposition party called the
Union for Constitutional Rights, claimed that Sarkisian went to the
restaurant on May 2 to celebrate with dozens of crime figures the 50th
anniversary of a prominent Russian mobster. The paper, one of the
best selling in Armenia, said that at one point he started angrily
quarrelling with some them over a business-related matter. It also
noted that some of them were among the passengers of the Armenian
airliner that crashed off the Russian Black Sea coast a few hours
later.

Sarkisian, meanwhile, refused to speak to journalists and comment
on the scandal as he attended a parliament session on Wednesday. His
powerful and normally reserved brother Serzh is currently attending
the Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy and was not available for comment.