AzerNews Weekly, Azerbaijan
Jan 7 2009

Armenian court convicts political analyst`s attacker

07-01-2009 04:39:57

An Armenian court has convicted an individual charged with making an
attempt on the life of a well-known local political analyst, the
Regnum news agency reported.
The country`s Northern Criminal Court sentenced Arshak Aghababayan,
nicknamed Turk Arshak, to 12 years in jail for executing an attempt to
kill Levon Melik-Shahnazarian.
According to the indictment, Turk Arshak and German Konjorian
attempted to kill the Armenian analyst on orders from an Azerbaijani
named Akhan. Both men, who came to Armenia from neighboring Georgia,
traveled to the village where Melik-Shahnazarian lived. After
discovering his home on April 22, 2008, the suspects fired a gun at
him from a three-meter range. The bullet hit the window frame and
bounced astray without hitting him. Several days later, Turk Arshak
made a phone call to Melik-Shahnazarian demanding that he stop his
media statements and threatening to kill him and his family if the
statements continued. The analyst, who tape recorded the telephone
call, reported the call to law-enforcement agencies, resulting in Turk
Arshak`s arrest on May 8.
According to the report, Aghababayan`s father died while he was still
a child, and the boy was raised by an Azerbaijani woman who was a
Georgian citizen. Therefore, he was given the "Turk" nickname.