ARGISHTI KIVARYAN’S RELATIVES FIND INVESTIGATION INCOMPETENT

PanARMENIAN.Net
05.05.2009 18:53 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "We’ll kill you anyway," shouted the criminals
assaulting Argishti Kivaryan , the journalist’s spouse Lusine Sahakyan
told a news conference today. "If assault perpetrators think they
frightened us, they don’t really know who we are," she said. Lousine
Sahakyan was interested in three questions: where the bullets were,
why the assault case was filed under Article 117 (Infliction of willful
light damage to health) and not Article 33-104 (death attempt) of RA
Criminal Code and why the investigation was conducted by assistant
investigator. "I haven’t turned to law enforcement agencies as I
don’t trust them. I think they are following us, and any information
obtained may be used against me," Mrs. Sahakyan said.

In his turn, Rouben Sahakyan announced that a competent judge would
not have filed case under Article 117 which requires a survivor’s
testimony. "It’s a fundamental principle of jurisprudence which any
competent lawyer is obliged to know," he noted, adding that the case
should have been filed under Section 2 Article 104, i.e. assault
for murder."

As noted by Mesrop Haroutyunyan, Deputy Chair of "Protecting Freedom
of Speech" Committee, this is not the first time attack against a
journalist or lawyer goes unpunished. Every time Armenian Government
makes public statements on necessity of investigating the case,
"but I don’t remember a single case investigated fully".

On April 30 05:00 a.m., former lawyer Argishti Kivaryan, coordinator of
Armenia Today news agency, was assaulted near his house. After beating
the journalist, the attackers released gunshots in his direction.

Argishti Kivaryan was then moved to town hospital where medical staff
refused to admit him. "After abortive requests to wake the chief
physician up, the relatives took Kiviryan to Erebuni medical center
where he was examined. Kivaryan is still in hospital. His life is
out of danger.