EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS ACCEPTS PETITION OF RA EX-FOREIGN MINISTER’S DEFENDER

Noyan Tapan
Jun 13 2007

YEREVAN, JUNE 13, NOYAN TAPAN. The European Court of Human Rights
accepted the petition of the defender of Alexandre Arzumanian,
RA ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, and gave six months for
the introduction of the necessary documents. As Melissa Brown,
A. Arzumanian’s wife, mentioned at the June 13 press conference, the
petition is filed on the basis that the RA National Security Service
has detained the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs and is charging him
with money laundering and only after his detention they are trying
to find proof.

The lawyers who took part in the press conference and the relatives
of A. Arzumanian declared that they will file petitions to a number
of international organizations and foreign embassies in the RA,
asking for the filing of criminal proceedings against A. Arzumanian
to qualify as political prosecution, and the latter as a political
prisoner. It was mentioned that it has already been two weeks since
a gathering of signatures has been initiated and more than a thousand
RA citizens have already signed.

In the lawyer Vardan Haroutiunian’s words,there are two reasons for
the detention of the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs and the charge
brought against him: A. Arzumanian had founded the Anhnazandutiun
(Disobedience) movement and he, together with Levon Ter-Petrosian,
RA’s first President, supports the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict which became the cause of the first president’s
resignation.