Thursday,
Former Armenian Official ‘Seeking Political Asylum In Russia’
• Aza Babayan
Armenia - Parliament deputy Mihran Poghosian at a session of the National
Assembly in Yerevan, 19 May 2017.
A Russian lawyer apparently representing Mihran Poghosian, a former senior
Armenian official facing corruption charges in Armenia, on Thursday did not
deny reports that he has applied for political asylum in Russia.
Poghosian was arrested in the northern Russian region of Karelia late last week
just days after being indicted by an Armenian law-enforcement body. A local
court reportedly allowed the Russian police to hold him in detention for up to
40 days, pending a decision on his extradition to Armenia demanded by Armenian
prosecutors.
News reports said on Wednesday that Poghosian, who denies the corruption
charges as politically motivated, has asked Russian authorities to grant him
asylum.
Mikhail Yamchitsky, the head of Karelia’s bar association described by Russian
media as Poghosian’s lawyer, refused to confirm or refute those reports.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service by phone, Yamchitsky said he is not
allowed to comment on the matter.
Under Russian law, political asylum can only be granted by President Vladimir
Putin. Russia’s Interior Ministry can recommend such decisions after consulting
with the Foreign Ministry and the Federal Security Service.
Armenian investigators claim that the 42-year-old Poghosian embezzled at least
64.2 million drams ($132,000) in public funds when he ran a state agency
enforcing court rulings from 2008-2016. They also accuse him of giving
privileged treatment to a real estate valuation firm that was contracted by the
Service for the Mandatory Execution of Judicial Acts (SMEJA) in 2014.
The firm was allegedly a subsidiary of shadowy companies set up by Poghosian in
Panama in 2011. Citing leaked documents widely known as the Panama Papers, an
Armenian investigative website reported in April 2016 that Poghosian controls
three such companies registered in the Central American state.
Poghosian dismissed the report. Nevertheless, he resigned as SMEJA chief
shortly afterwards despite continuing to deny any wrongdoing. A year later, he
was elected to the former Armenian parliament on the ticket of ex-President
Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party.
Armenia Condemns Erdogan’s ‘Hate Speech’
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his wife Anna Hakobian lay
flowers at the Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has strongly condemned Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan’s latest public denial of the 1915 Armenian genocide in the
Ottoman Empire, saying that it amounts to “extreme hate speech.”
Erdogan again lambasted France and other nations recognizing the genocide on
Wednesday when he spoke at a conference in Ankara apparently timed to coincide
with the annual remembrance of some 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians who lost
their lives during the First World War.
Erdogan claimed that Armenians themselves massacred Muslim civilians and that
their mass deportations to the Syrian desert was “the most reasonable action
that could be taken” by the Ottoman government. “Relocation is one thing,
massacre is another thing,” he said.
TURKEY -- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his wife Emine
Erdogan, addresses AK Party supporters in Ankara, April 1, 2019
Pashinian reacted angrily to Erdogan’s remarks on his Twitter page. “Calling
victims ofthe Armenian Genocide, the Ottoman Empire's entire Armenian
population, which was sent to death marches, ‘Armenian gangs & their
supporters’ … is not just a new high in denialism but justification of nation
murder,” he wrote.
“Above all, doing this on April 24 is an ultimate insult to the Armenian people
and to humanity,” the prime minister added, urging the international community
to condemn Erdogan’s “extreme hate speech.”
Throughout his long rule, Erdogan has stuck to successive Turkish governments’
strong denial of a premeditated effort by the Ottoman regime of “the Young
Turks” to exterminate the empire’s Armenian population. In April 2015, he
likewise said that “the relocation of the Armenian population in Anatolia to
southern lands” was a legitimate response to violence by “Armenian gangs
provoked by various powers.”
The Turkish leader referred to the Syrian desert where hundreds of thousands of
Armenians -- mostly women, children and elderly people -- were killed or
starved to death. Scores of others died on their way to the Deir ez-Zor camps.
FRANCE -- French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during the annual dinner of
the Co-ordination Council of Armenian organisations of France (CCAF), in Paris,
February 5, 2019
In his latest speech, Erdogan lashed out at France, which officially recognized
the genocide in 2001 and held its first "national day of commemoration of the
Armenian genocide" on Wednesday. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe led the
commemorations in Paris on Wednesday, laying flowers at a monument to the
genocide victims erected in 2003.
“France intends to contribute to the recognition of the Armenian genocide as a
crime against humanity, against civilization,” Philippe said, according to the
AFP news agency. “It will not be impressed by any lies, by any pressure, what
we are looking for is historical accuracy and reconciliation.”
European Court Rules On Ter-Petrosian’s 2008 Appeal
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian at an election campaign rally,
February 13, 2008.
Former Armenian authorities violated citizens’ freedom of assembly when they
broke up post-elections demonstrations in 2008, the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR) said on Thursday in a ruling on an appeal lodged by former
President Levon Ter-Petrosian.
The ECHR at the same dismissed as “manifestly ill-founded” Ter-Petrosian’s
claim that he was illegally placed under house arrest following the forcible
dispersal of daily protests organized by him in Yerevan’s Liberty Square.
Ter-Petrosian and his supporters rejected as fraudulent official results of the
February 2008 presidential election which gave victory to Serzh Sarkisian. The
ex-president was the main opposition candidate in the disputed ballot.
Security forces dispersed Ter-Petrosian’s tent camp in Liberty Square early on
March 1, 2008. The opposition leader was forced into a car and taken to his
Yerevan residence from the square.
Thousands of his supporters barricaded themselves elsewhere in the city center
later on that day. Eight protesters and two police servicemen were killed in
ensuing violent clashes that broke out there. Citing the deadly violence, the
outgoing President Robert Kocharian declared a three-week state of emergency in
the Armenian capital.
Ter-Petrosian appealed to the ECHR in August 2008, saying that security forces
breached his and his supporters’ freedom of assembly and illegally deprived him
of liberty.
Upholding its September 2018 judgment on a similar appeal lodged by one of
Ter-Petrosian’s former associates, the ECHR ruled that the breakup of the
Liberty Square protests did not have “sufficient justification” and involved
“disproportionate” use of force.
It said the crackdown violated an article of the European Convention on Human
Right guaranteeing freedom of assembly. Ter-Petrosian also did not have “an
effective domestic remedy for his grievances,” the Strasbourg-based court added
in a statement.
Still, the ECHR ruled that it lacks “strong and unequivocal evidence” to
conclude that Ter-Petrosian was kept under house arrest during the state of
emergency. “The Court found that there was insufficient substantiation for
these complaints and that this part of the application had to be rejected as
manifestly ill-founded,” read the statement.
Vahe Grigorian, a lawyer who had lodged Ter-Petrosian’s appeal to Strasbourg,
welcomed the ECHR ruling. Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenians service, Grigorian
said it represents further proof that the use of force against protesters
camped on Liberty Square was “totally unconstitutional and illegal.”
Press Review
“Zhoghovurd” says that Mihran Poghosian, the fugitive former head of Armenia’s
Service for the Mandatory Execution of Judicial Acts (SMEJA), should have been
prosecuted on corruption charges three years ago when it first emerged that he
has secret offshore assets. The paper says this did not happen because former
President Serzh Sarkisian did not want to “sacrifice” a key member of his
political clan. It wonders whether Russia will now extradite Poghosian to
Armenia or grant him political asylum.
“Poghosian thinks that he is prosecuted in Armenia for political reasons,”
writes Lragir.am. “A Russian court allowed his 40-day arrest earlier this week
as Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General said it has presented the Russian
side with all documents required for his extradition,” it says. “Now Russia has
to choose between believing Armenian law-enforcement authorities and Mihran
Poghosian.”
“Hraparak” says that Armenia must get rid of “all taboos and stereotypes”
relating to relations with its neighbors, “discuss all problems in a free and
uninhibited manner” and make far-reaching decisions. In this endeavor, the
paper, says the Armenian authorities must avoid “cheap populism.” “Of course
our people will always remember and commemorate the victims of the 1915
genocide,” it says. “This is the whole nation’s pain and future generations too
will carry it. But that pain must not prevent us from living, developing,
normalizing relations with neighbors, having open borders and integrating into
the world.”
“Haykakan Zhamanak” scoffs at supporters of the former Armenian government who
accuse Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of failing to fulfill many promises given
by him during last year’s “velvet revolution.” “And they draw corresponding
conclusions that nothing has changed in the past year or that if something has
changed it has changed only for the worse,” writes the pro-Pashinian paper. It
says it is “the people,” not the former regime, who must gauge the results of
the revolution.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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