Family plans to send pardon plea to Saakashvili A Georgian court has sentenced Arman Ghazaryan to one year imprisonment for entering Georgia from the breakaway republic of Abkhazia. Hetq covered the plight of the 25 year-old from Russia last week in an article entitled Inviolable Borders: Georgians Arrest Armenian for Abkhazia Visit.  Arman was given the chance to plead guilty to the charges, pay a fine if applicable, and accept a lesser sentence. The Georgian court accepted the plea bargaining motion and never even mentioned the issuance of any fines. After the sentence was handed down, Arman’s relatives were allowed to see him. “Arman is in a pretty bad state,” said Liana Galoyan, Arman’s aunt who lives in Vanadzor. She had just returned from Tbilisi. “He can’t hear in one ear and his sight is quite poor; he can’t focus. His nerves are shot and this has caused one of his eyes to droop.” From behind a glass partition, Arman complained to his aunt that his head and neck hurt. He said he was suffering from claustrophobia within the confines of the detention cell and that this restricted freedom of movement was very irritating. Arman wasn’t feeling well during the trial as well. He said he felt a chill and asked that the air conditioner be turned off. An account in his name has been opened in the jail and twice every week 25-30 Georgian Lari are transferred to the account. He uses the money to buy food. Mrs. Galoyan says that there isn’t much to eat at the jail. She says her nephew has a weak constitution and that he needs nutritious food, but that there are no fruits or sweets at the jail. During the first days of his incarceration, Arman ate nothing. Hunger soon forced him to adjust to the porridge the jail dished out to inmates. His aunt has sent three food packages to Arman but none have reached him. During their jail visit, Arman instructed his aunt not to send anything more. Mrs. Galoyan complains that the Armenian government has offered no assistance in the matter and charges the Armenian Embassy in Georgia with displaying complete disinterest. She recounted how the embassy even failed to inform Arman’s relatives when they received official notice of his arrest at the Georgian border. When Mrs. Galoyan asked Vardan Hovhannisyan, the Armenian Consul, why his office failed to notify the relatives he replied, “Was I obligated to notify you? Why are you trying to cause a fuss?” “Whose responsibility was it? We were at our wits end; the boy had gone missing,” Mrs. Galoyan angrily said. All the embassy said was that the young man had violated the law and had to be punished. They could only suggest an attorney for the family to hire. Mrs. Galoyan asked the embassy if they weren’t interested in knowing what was happening to an Armenian citizen in some Georgian jail. They answered that if the citizen in question were to lodge a formal complaint, saying that he was being mistreated or beaten, the embassy would surely respond. Arman’s aunt has new information about the legal proceedings. It turns out that Arman signed off on the plea bargain deal offered by the court much sooner than the relatives had been told. The Georgian investigator had telephoned Mrs. Galoyan on July 10 and requested that she travel to Tbilisi. She arrived on July 12, but Arman had already been taken to Gldan jail. She had come to arrangement with the pre-trial examining body not to take any further steps in the case until her next visit to Tbilisi on August 2. She didn’t want the investigator to present the case to the prosecutor. She had arranged for the plea bargain to be delayed until her next visit, when she would give her consent for Arman to sign. Mrs. Galoyan said that the family was thinking about using the time to apply to some legal rights organizations for help. During her next visit to Tbilisi, Mrs. Galoyan gave her consent to the plea bargain even though she was told it wasn’t needed since Arman was an adult and could decide for himself. Arman had already signed the plea bargain on July 21. His relatives were unaware of this development and at the time were trying to come to an agreement about the amount of the fine to be levied. “If I knew as much, I wouldn’t have gone to the prosecutor or made another agreement. They tricked the boy and forced him to sign,” says Mrs. Galoyan. She says her nephew was between a rock and a hard place. She remembers the prosecutor’s warnings to Arman – ‘Either you confess your guilt in writing and accept the sentence, or else we will try you in court and you’ll be sent away for 2-4 years. We’ve received our orders. There are no more fines, just jail time’. Mrs. Galoyan expresses a degree of incredulity at how an administrative violation was turned into a criminal matter just based on the route taken by Arman. He left his home in Russia and travelled to the Russian port city of Sochi. From there, he made his way to Sukhumi, Abkhazia. He left Abkhazia and entered Georgia and made his way to Tbilisi where he booked a seat on the train to Yerevan. Before crossing the border, Georgian authorities conducted a passport check at Bolnisi and he was removed. Mrs. Galoyan says that Abkhazia authorities didn’t stamp Arman’s passport either when entering or leaving the breakaway republic. She says that Arman had told her that the Abkhaz authorities were very accommodating and pleasant. When he asked that they not stamp any visa in his passport, he was waved through by the border guards who said ‘Welcome to Abkhazia’. Mrs. Galoyan says that it’s the average folk who suffer due to the political policies of governments and questions why her nephew Arman must spend a year in Gldan Jail. The family has no intention of remaining silent. They are planning to send a letter to Georgian President Saakashvili, with a request that Arman be pardoned. They will attach Arman’s medical history to the letter. The Lori Regional Neurological Dispensary, the the time, diagnosed Arman as being prone to a variety of neurosis, such as claustrophobia and panic attacks.