ARMENIAN JOURNALIST ATTACKER ‘IDENTIFIED’
Irina Hovannisian
le/1991632.html
23.03.2010
A man who reportedly attacked a prominent Armenian photojournalist
outside of the Office of the Prosecutor-General last month is a police
officer, law-enforcement officials confirmed on Tuesday.
He reportedly swore at and repeatedly hit Gagik Shamshian in the
head with a handbag before entering the prosecutors’ headquarters on
February 24. Shamshian said he was attacked after refusing to stop
taking the man’s pictures.
The incident was caught on security cameras placed on the building.
The prosecutors publicized the video images several days later,
after Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian publicly told Shamshian to
report the attack to law-enforcement authorities. The photojournalist,
who works for several pro-opposition newspapers, also managed to
photograph the attacker.
"On the basis of the photograph presented by him, we have found the
perpetrator," Ashot Karapetian, the police chief of Yerevan’s central
Kentron district, told RFE/RL. He said the latter is a police officer.
A spokesman for the national police service confirmed the information.
Citing criminal suspects’ presumption of innocence, the spokesman
disclosed only the attacker’s first name, Gagik.
He also told RFE/RL that the police officer has not been formally
charged yet. A criminal investigation into the attack is being
conducted by the Kentron police under articles of the Armenian
Criminal Code dealing with beatings and obstruction of journalists’
work. Such crimes are punishable by up to two months’ imprisonment
and fines respectively.
Shamshian, has a history of physical abuse at the hands of security
officers, identified the attacker as Gagik Markarian. He said the
latter works at the police department of Yerevan’s Erebuni district
and was frequently present at the trials of opposition figures arrested
after the 2008 presidential election.