IN ARMENIA, COURT REJECTS PETITION ON CHANGING RESTRAINT OF HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST ARSHALUIS AKOPYAN

234
sep 18 2009, 23:50

The chair of the trial on the case of Arshaluis Akopyan, and employee
of the Helsinki Association, accused of applying violence to policemen,
has rejected the petition lodged by advocate Gayane Khachatryan on
changing the restraint of her client.

Ms Khachatryan has presented the petition and noted that the court
has all the grounds to change the restraint for a more lenient form;
however Judge Gagik Avetisyan rejected the petition.

Then the court has listened to evidences of the suffered policemen
– Ashot Sargsyan and Vage Badalyan. They told the court that that
had brought a summons to Akopyan home, prescribing to appear at law
enforcement bodies for evidencing about the violations at elections to
the Yerevan City Mayoralty on May 31, of which Akopyan was a witness.

According to their version, when they brought the summons,
Akopyan put his signature in a wrong place; then, he corrected his
mistake. However, when the policemen were about to leave, Akopyan
started abusing and beating them. The policemen called their station
and asked for help. Then, with the help of two other policemen Akopyan
was brought to the Tsentralny District Police Department. When asked
by the advocate what the policemen did when Akopyan abused them, and
whether they beat Akopyan, they answered that they did not beat him,
but politely invited to take the police car.

According to Akopyan, the policemen promised to bring him to the
station and break all his bones.

Advocate Gayane Khachatryan told journalists that the case includes
only the policemen’s evidences, which is a rough violation of the law.