NGO HEAD ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF PLOTTING COUP

Armenpress
Dec 11 2006

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 11, ARMENPRESS: Armenian authorities have arrested
Zhirair Sefilian, a veteran of the Nagorno-Karabakh war and a
coordinator of a public organization called For the Protection of
Liberated Territories on charges of plotting a coup to overthrow
the incumbent adminisration.. He was arrested on early Sunday by
officers of the Armenian National Security Service together with
Vartan Malkhasian, another key member of the organization.

A statement by the National Security Service said Sefilian, who is a
citizen of Lebanon, and some members of the group designed a plan to
intervene into upcoming political developments, use force and resort
to extreme actions to impact the outcome of the 2007 parliamentary
elections.

The statement said the National Security Service has undeniable
evidence to prove these accusations. It said during a December 2
meeting inside a dance school in Yerevan some members of the group
called for an open coup, saying that only an armed battle, a revolt
was the only way to get rid of the incumbent regime.

The statement said these people presented a concrete plan of actions
how to achieve this goal.

The statement said the majority of the organization’s members were
unaware of their leader’s plans who was funded from suspicious
sources abroad.