Wednesday, August 2, 2017 Jailed Oppositionist Goes On Trial . Sisak Gabrielian Armenia - Opposition activist Andrias Ghukasian goes on trial in Yerevan, 2Aug2017. The trial began on Wednesday of an Armenian opposition activist accused of aiding gunmen that seized a police station in Yerevan last year to demand President Serzh Sarkisian's resignation. The arrested activist, Andrias Ghukasian, was one of the organizers of demonstrations held in support of the gunmen affiliated with a fringe opposition group. The charges levelled against him stem from one of those rallies that was organized on July 29, 2016 in Yerevan's Sari Tagh neighborhood close to the besieged police base. Riot police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the protesters after they refused to march back to the city center. Several organizers of the protest were arrested and charged with provoking "mass disturbances." All of them except Ghukasian were subsequently released from custody. Armenia's Special Investigative Service (SIS) claims that Ghukasian urged supporters to throw stones at the police officers in Sari Tagh. The 47-year-old also stands accused of planning to have the protesters break through a police cordon, join the gunmen and thus prolong their standoff with security forces, which left three police officers dead. Ghukasian denies the accusations as politically motivated. His lawyers say that they are based on false testimony given by a man linked to the police. They say the testimony runs counter to videos of the July 2016 protests featuring Ghukasian. Ghukasian has also accused SIS investigators of committing numerous violations of the due process during their nearly yearlong criminal inquiry. At the opening session of his trial, the presiding judge did not allow to read out a statement detailing the alleged violations. The judge went on to adjourn the hearing, citing the absence of the oppositionist's lawyers. He said the trial will resume after they return from vacation. Armenia - Riot police disperse protesters in Yerevan's Sari Tagh neighborhood, 29Jul2016. Two other opposition activists arrested in connection with the Sari Tagh violence, Davit Sanasarian and Davit Hovannisian, also attended the first court hearing that lasted for only several minutes. Both men decried the criminal case against their comrade. Hovannisian, who was freed on bail in June, claimed that the Sari Tagh crowd could have easily broken through the police cordon had the protest organizers indeed planned to join the gunmen. More than 60 protesters were injured and hospitalized in the Sari Tagh violence. The police say that 36 of their officers were injured by stones thrown from the crowd shortly before the violent breakup of the protest. In a January report, Human Rights Watch said that the use of force against the protesters was "excessive and disproportionate." The crackdown has also been criticized by Armenian human rights activists. A former business executive, Ghukasian was a maverick candidate in Armenia's last presidential election held in 2013. He garnered about 0.6 percent of the vote, according to the official election results. Despite being held in pre-trial detention, Ghukasian ran in the April 2 parliamentary elections as a candidate of the opposition ORO alliance led by former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian and former Foreign Ministers Raffi Hovannisian and Vartan Oskanian. ORO polled only 2 percent of the vote, falling well short of a 7 percent threshold for having seats in Armenia's current parliament. Armenian Village Shooting `Linked To Money' . Anush Muradian Armenia - Forensic experts inspect a dining hall in the village of Shamiram where four men were killed and seven others wounded, 1Aug2017. A mass shooting in an Armenian village, which left four people dead, was the result of an unpaid debt, a leader of Armenia's Yazidi community claimed on Wednesday. The killings were committed in Shamiram, a Yazidi-populated village 50 kilometers west of Yerevan, on Tuesday during a gathering of several hundred local men marking a religious feast. Four of them were shot dead and seven others wounded by a gunman who fled the scene. The Armenian police identified the presumed shooter as Telman Kalashian, a 50-year resident of another village. Kalashian remained on the run as of Wednesday evening. Aziz Tamoyan, who leads the largest organization of Armenia's ethnic Yazidis, attributed the carnage to $100,000 which he said was long owed to Kalashian. In his words, Kalashian shouted that "I won't shoot you if you give me my money" moments before opening fire. Three of the four murdered men were related to each other, said Tamoyan, who visited Shamiram earlier in the day. "I know that Telman's father very well," Tamoyan told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). "He is a kind and good person, a wonderful individual. I can't understand why that guy took such an action." Meanwhile, the mayor of Kalashian's village of Miasnikian said that the fugitive suspect is a herdsman who was not known for violent conduct. "He is a normal working man who has raised livestock," Tigran Baghdasarian told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). "He has a wife, three daughters and one son." The mayor also said that the homes of the Kalashians and their relatives were placed under police guard shortly after the shootings. Russia To Suspend Gas Supplies To Armenia Russia -- A logo of the Russian Gazprom company during the 16th Neftegaz International Exhibition in Moscow, April 18, 2016 Supplies of Russian natural gas to Armenia will be suspended on Thursday due to capital repairs on a pipeline in Russia, the Armenian national gas distribution network announced on Wednesday. The Gazprom-Armenia operator said they will resume 30 days later, after the completion of "construction works" at a North Caucasus section of the pipeline transporting Russian gas to Armenia via Georgia. Gas supplies to individual and corporate consumers will continue "without limitations" in the meantime, it added in a short statement. The company owned by Russia's Gazprom energy giant will presumably tap its massive underground gas storage facilities north of Yerevan during that period. It might also use additional volumes of natural gas which Armenia imports from neighboring Iran. Armenia already asked Iran to supply it with much more natural gas during a similar month-long suspension of gas imports from Russia last summer. A Georgian section of the pipeline underwent major repairs at the time. Armenia has imported up to 500 million cubic meters of Iranian gas annually ever since it built in 2008 a gas pipeline connecting it to the Islamic Republic. By comparison, Russian gas supplies to the South Caucasus country total around 2 billion cubic meters. With Armenia paying for Iranian gas with electricity, Iran is due to at least triple the gas supplies after the construction of a third power transmission line connecting the two states. Work on the $120 million line is slated for completion in 2019. Natural gas generates more than one-third of Armenia's electricity. It is also used, in liquefied or pressurized forms, by most car owners in the country. Press Review Panorama.am reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, has expressed concern over reports that the United States is considering supplying weapons to Ukraine. "The Kremlin believes that countries aspiring to a role in the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine must avoid actions that could provoke a new period of tension in Donbass," Peskov said. The online publication finds this argument disingenuous. It points out that Russia itself has sold weapons to Azerbaijan despite being a mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. "The sales of Russian weapons to Azerbaijan are the main reason for a transformation of Russian-Armenian relations," writes Lragir.am. It says that not only Armenia's government and opposition forces but even the parents of soldiers serving in the Armenian army criticize Russian arms sales to Baku. It also argues that neither the United States nor France, the two other co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, has signed major arms deals with Azerbaijan. "Aravot reports on President Serzh Sarkisian's statement that unspecified "experts" are now looking into the possibility of supplying Iranian natural gas to Europe via Armenia. Artyom Tonoyan, an expert on Iranian affairs, tells the paper that Yerevan has already made clear before that it would welcome such an ambitious project. He suggests that the project is still far from being implemented due to "technical issues" such as the small capacity of the existing pipeline in Armenia transporting Iranian gas and the high cost of delivering that gas from Georgia to Europe via the Black Sea. "Generally speaking, the area of energy is at the center of Armenian-Iranian relations and is one of the most dynamically developing directions," he says, pointing to the ongoing construction of a third Armenian-Iranian electricity transmission line. (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org