HIGH COURT REFUSES TO FREE OPPOSITIONIST
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech rep.
May 24 2007

Armenia’s Court of Appeals on Thursday refused to release former
Foreign Minister Aleksandr Arzumanian from jail pending investigation
into the allegedly illegal financing of his anti-government political
activities.

It upheld a lower court’s decision earlier this month to allow the
National Security Service (NSS) to keep the outspoken opposition
politician under two-month arrest. The NSS claims that he illegally
received cash from a fugitive Russian businessman of Armenian origin
and will impede its criminal investigation if set free.

Arzumanian’s lawyer, Hovik Arsenian, condemned the ruling, accusing
the high court of following "political orders," rather than the law.

Arsenian said NSS investigators told him that his client will be
released on bail if he agrees to give testimony.

"I consider that humiliating," the lawyer told RFE/RL. "He is making
use of his constitutional right [not to testify.]"

Arzumanian was arrested on May 7 and remanded in pre-trial detention
three days later over the alleged financing of his Civil Resistance
Movement by Levon Markos, a Russian-Armenian businessman at odds with
the Armenian government. The arrest came two days after NSS officers
searched his Yerevan apartment and confiscated $55,4000 kept there.

They also confiscated a comparable amount of cash from the Yerevan
apartment of Vahan Shirkhanian, another movement leader and former
government minister. But unlike Arzumanian, Shirkhanian has not been
charged with attempts to "legalize revenues obtained by criminal
means." Both men deny having been funded by Markos.

"I join my client in declaring that the whole thing is a political
order," said Arsenian. "He hasn’t done anything illicit."

Arzumanian’s American wife, Melissa Brown, was also present at the
court session. She said she would like to meet President Robert
Kocharian and Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian and ask them to explain
why her husband was arrested. She told RFE/RL: "Everyone asks, ‘Why
did they arrest Alik?’ I say, ‘Don’t ask me, ask them.’ I too would
like to ask them."

Brown and other relatives of Arzumanian issued a statement last week
condemning the case as politically motivated and asking his "friends
and colleagues in Armenia and abroad" to help secure his release.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress