Tuesday, September 8, 2020
Another Former Armenian Official Indicted
Armenia -- Ruling Republican MP Mher Sedrakian, 22 Feb, 2016
A law-enforcement agency brought on Tuesday corruption charges against a
notorious former lawmaker and influential member of former President Serzh
Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK).
The Investigative Committee said Mher Sedrakian abused his powers to sell a
large part of a public park to his son and brother when he ran Yerevan’s
southern Erebuni district from 1999-2008. It claimed that Sedrakian helped his
relatives privatize the 12,000-square-meter plot of land in 2004 after they
illegally built properties there.
It was not immediately clear if Sedrakian will plead guilty to the accusations.
The 69-year-old was not arrested pending investigation. The Investigative
Committee had him sign instead a pledge not to leave the country.
Sedrakian, who is better known as “Tokhmakhi Mher,” held sway in Erebuni for
many years, controlling many local businesses and strongly influencing election
results there. Press reports repeatedly implicated his clan in violent attacks
on opposition activists and journalists as well as vote rigging.
Sedrakian was also dogged by scandals when he represented the former ruling HHK
in the Armenian parliament from 2012-2017. He reportedly insulted and threatened
journalists on at least two occasions, drawing strong condemnations from the
country’s leading media associations.
Also facing criminal charges are several other controversial HHK figures and
former officials. Some of them have fled to Russia to avoid imprisonment. Only
one of them, former parliament deputy Levon Sargsian, has been extradited to
Armenia so far.
Relatives Of 2008 Unrest Victims Boycott Kocharian Trial
• Karlen Aslanian
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian and three other former officials
stand trial in Yerevan, September 17, 2019.
Relatives of nine people killed in the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan
have decided to boycott the ongoing trial of former President Robert Kocharian
and three other former officials prosecuted on coup charges.
A lawyer representing them, Tigran Yegorian, claimed on Monday that the trial,
which began in May 2019, has become a “farce” because of what he called delay
tactics adopted by Kocharian and the other defendants. He complained that a
Yerevan district court is still not examining substantive issues because of
numerous petitions mostly relating to procedural issues submitted by the
defendants’ lawyers.
Yegorian also said that he and his clients do not trust the Armenian judiciary
because they believe the country’s current government has not done enough to
reform it since taking office after the 2018 “Velvet Revolution.” The boycott is
therefore also a “message” addressed to the government, he told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service.
Justice Minister Rustam Badasian dismissed the criticism on Tuesday. Badasian
said that while he shares the relatives’ concerns about the course of the trial
he believes that the government must not interfere in court hearings on the
case. Such intervention would run counter to judicial independence guaranteed by
the Armenian constitution, he told reporters.
Badasian also defended “quite intensive” judicial reforms launched by Armenia’s
current political leadership. “I think it’s wrong to link the overall course of
the reforms to a particular court case,” he said.
Sargis Kloyan, whose son Gor was among eight protesters killed in March 2008
street clashes with security forces, said the boycott will continue until the
authorities initiate major changes in the judiciary. He was particularly upset
with Kocharian’s release from prison ordered by Armenia’s Court of Appeals in
May this year.
Kocharian, who was first arrested in July 2018, his former chief of staff and
two retired army generals stand accused of illegally using Armenian army units
against opposition protesters in the wake of a disputed presidential election
held in February 2008. They reject the accusations as politically motivated.
Kocharian, who handed over power to Serzh Sarkisian in April 2008, has
consistently defended the use of force against supporters of Levon
Ter-Petrosian, the main opposition candidate in the presidential ballot. He
maintains that security forces thwarted a violent seizure of power by the
Ter-Petrosian-led opposition.
Karabakh Lifts Coronavirus Travel Restrictions
• Marine Khachatrian
Nagorno-Karabakh -- A road in northern Karabakh leading to Armenia, September 8,
2018.
Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh lifted on Tuesday serious restrictions on people
leaving and entering the Armenian-populated region which were imposed following
the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Ever since March Karabakh residents have not been allowed to travel to Armenia
without a written permission issued by the head of a Stepanakert-based
government body coordinating the authorities’ response to the pandemic. The body
has also required citizens of Armenia and other countries to undergo COVID-19
tests before entering Karabakh.
The “commandant” heading the body, Zhirayr Mirzoyan, attributed the scrapping of
these restrictions to a “drastic decrease” in coronavirus cases recorded in
Armenia of late. Mirzoyan said the Karabakh authorities will at the same time
step up their enforcement of anti-epidemic safety rules.
In particular, they will keep medical workers deployed at Karabakh border
checkpoints. The latter will measure the temperature of people arriving in
Karabakh from Armenia.
The authorities have reported 316 coronavirus cases and no fatalities in
Karabakh so far. According to them, 277 of the infected local residents have
recovered from COVID-19.
The first case was registered in early April ahead of a second round of voting
in a presidential election. The runoff vote went ahead despite serious concerns
about the spread of the disease in Karabakh.
Armenia’s Coronavirus Cases Continue Downward Trend
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia -- A medical worker takes notes at the Surp Grigor Lusarovich Medical
Center in Yerevan, the country's largest hospital treating coronavirus patients,
June 5, 2020.
The daily number of new coronavirus cases registered in Armenia is continuing to
decline steadily after peaking three months ago.
The Armenian Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday that 108 people have tested
positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, sharply down from an average of
550-600 cases a day registered in the first half of July and roughly 250 daily
cases recorded in early August.
The ministry said 471 other patients have recovered from the disease, reducing
to 3,182 the total number of active cases in the country of about 3 million. The
number stood at over 7,700 a month ago.
The ministry data also shows that less than 6 percent of coronavirus tests
carried out in the last two days came back positive. The positive test rate
hovered between 20 percent and 25 percent in late July and has fallen steadily
since then.
“If compare the number of tests, newly detected cases and recoveries in the past
week or ten days we can say that the downward trend is holding steady,” a
spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health, Lilit Babakhanian, told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service.
The trend has allowed the health authorities to reduce the number of hospitals
treating COVID-19 patients. There were two dozen such hospitals across Armenia
at the height of the coronavirus crisis early this summer. According to
Babakhanian, only eight of them are continuing to deal with the pandemic now.
The country’s infection rates have been falling despite the lifting in early May
of the vast majority of government restrictions on people’s movements and
business activity. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government has since put the
emphasis of getting Armenians to practice social distancing, wear face masks and
follow other anti-epidemic rules. Mask-wearing has been mandatory in all public
areas since June.
ARMENIA -- A bride and a bridegroom wearing protective face masks exchange
kisses during a wedding ceremony in a church in Saghmosavan village on June 14,
2020.
The government decided late last month to lift virtually all remaining
restrictions. It went on to introduce strict safety protocols for Armenian
schools and universities that are due reopen on September 15.
Despite the improving epidemiological situation opposition figures and other
critics continue to accuse the government of mishandling the coronavirus crisis.
They argue that with almost 45,000 coronavirus cases recorded to date Armenia
has had one of the highest infection rates in the world. Critics also point to
the deaths of at least 1,179 Armenians infected with the disease.
The health authorities say that COVID-19 was the primary cause of 903 of those
deaths. The 276 other infected people have died from other, pre-existing
conditions, according to them.
Pashinian, Health Minister Arsen Torosian and other government officials dismiss
the opposition criticism. In particular, Torosian has argued that Armenia’s
COVID-19 mortality rate is significantly lower than that of many Western nations
that spend a lot more on healthcare.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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