ArmeniaNow.com-September 8, 2006
HERITAGE GATE?: POLITICAL PARTY DEMANDS PRESIDENT BE QUESTIONED
Gayane Lazarian
ArmeniaNow reporter
The Heritage political party held a press conference this week in which
it demanded that the Prosecutor General of Armenia question President
Robert Kocharyan, concerning allegations of a "mini-Watergate".
Party founder and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Raffi
Hovannisian, made reference to the famous US scandal that ended the
presidency of Richard Nixon. He equated it to actions taken against
the Heritage party. The party alleges that information has been stolen,
and that the President’s office knew about it.
The background:
On March 4, Heritage party’s offices were shut down by the government,
which claimed the party no longer had a right to operate from space
provided at the Paronian Theater.
The party offices were sealed until May 29, while the party filed
action that eventually led to getting the offices back.
Upon regaining its facilities, Heritage staff learned that one of its
computers had been tampered with, during the period that the office
was supposed to have remained sealed. It filed a complaint with the
Kentron Division of Yerevan Police, demanding an investigation.
On August 30, the police returned a decision saying there was no
grounds for an investigation.
A lawyer for the party, Zaruhi Postanjyan, however, says experts at the
National Bureau of Examination at the National Academy of Sciences,
has shown the computer had been switched on for 22-24 minutes during
the night of March 8. The examination also found that a different
monitor and a memory device had been connected during that time.
"This is a mini-Watergate scandal being repeated in Armenia," said
the party’s fiery founder. "In a country with a declared rule of law
they close one’s office in the night without any court decision, they
penetrate into the office in the night four days after the closing,
switch on the computer there and get the secret information about
the party and its activists."
Hovannisian, among the strongest and most persistent of Kocharyan
adversaries, says the Office of the President is aware of the spying
on his party and that theft has been committed.
Attorney Postanjyan alleges that the police were negligent.
"The results of the examination are enough to bring a case into
action," she says. "However, ignoring the law and justice, law
enforcers refuse to hold a relevant investigation referring instead
to the lack of the corpus delicti," says Postanjyan.
Hovannisian believes that, in addition to other documents, a list
of party activists was stolen, with the intention to intimidate
sympathizers.
"I hope the national Security Service has no connection to all of this,
because the information was so badly stolen, that I wouldn’t like
to learn the Service operates so poorly," Hovannisian sarcastically
stated. "I am confident the incident was a response to our recent
civil activity taking place in an atmosphere of fear."
The leader of the party complained that appeals by the party have
been denied at every level of the justice system.
During the press conference, he also commented on Wednesday’s murder
of the head of Armenia’s "tax police".
"It reflects the illness of our authorities, our state and our
society," Hovannisian said. "We can keep speaking about law and
democracy, but unless everyone – whether a President or an ordinary
citizen – is equal before the law in this country, this kind of things
will continue to happen."