ARMENIAN EDITOR BLAMES GEORGIA POLICE OFFICIAL FOR ASSAULT
Tatevik Lazarian

2029364.html
30.04.2010

Armenia — Journalist Argishti Kivirian at a press conference,

Argishti Kivirian, an Armenian media editor who was badly beaten
in Yerevan last year, accused on Friday an ethnic Armenian police
official in Georgia of masterminding the still unsolved assault.

Kivirian, 37, was attacked outside his apartment in the city center
in the early hours of April 30, 2009. He was rushed to hospital and
kept in intensive care for several days. The attackers apparently
used wooden sticks to inflict serious injuries on his head and body.

The criminal investigation into the incident was initially conducted
by the Armenian police under a Criminal Code clause that deal with
violent attacks resulting in "light injuries." A resulting media
outcry led Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) to take over
the inquiry and essentially back the Kivirian family’s belief that
the attack was a murder attempt.

The NSS arrested two men, identified as Vladik Serobian and Gurgen
Kilikian, on related charges in July. According to Kivirian, they
both were released from pre-trial custody last month.

An NSS spokesman declined to confirm or deny this when contacted by
RFE/RL’s Armenian service on Friday. Nor did he agree to divulge any
details of the probe, saying that it is still not over.

Speaking at a news conference held on the first anniversary of the
incident, Kivirian pointed the finger at Samvel Petrosian, the police
chief of the Akhalkalaki district in southern Georgia mainly populated
by Armenians. He argued that his Armenia Today and Bagin online news
services repeatedly accused Georgian authorities and the Akhalkalaki
police in particular of unleashing repressions against local Armenian
activists campaigning for the region’s greater autonomy.

Petrosian was personally blamed for the 2008 arrests of some of those
activists. Three of them were subsequently tried and given lengthy
prison sentences on controversial charges.

Kivirian, who is a native of Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia,
alleged that Serobian and Kilikian, the apparently freed suspects,
met Petrosian and received clear instructions from him two days before
the April 2009 assault. He also claimed that Serobian is related to
the Akhalkalaki police chief.

"I have no personal enemies. And so I link [the attack] only with my
journalistic activities," said the editor.

Kivirian went on to question the Armenian authorities’ commitment to
solve the case. "The presidential press service is saying that the case
is under the president’s strict control. Were those two individuals
set free as a result of that strict control?" he asked with sarcasm.

"Some time later, this criminal case will be suspended and put into
a drawer," he added.

Kivirian’s beating was one of the most serious instances of violence
ever committed against Armenian journalists. It was condemned by
more than a dozen Armenian non-governmental organizations involved
in media freedom and human rights advocacy. They said it was made
possible by the authorities’ failure to punish the perpetrators of
previous attacks on journalists.