Former Artsakh Minister of Defense Samvel Babayan, now on trial in a Yerevan court for money laundering and attempting to smuggle a missile launcher into Armenia, today proclaimed his innocence, saying that authorities were out to get him.
The trial, which commenced on June 8, has plodded along at a snail’s pace. Defense attorneys have walked-out in protest, and Judge Artoush Gabrielyan has sanctioned several of the attorneys and defendants for improper behavior.
On December 19, 2015, Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) reported that Vahan Shirkhanyan, a former deputy defense minister of Armenia, was arrested on suspicion that he aided and abetted Artour Vardanyan, arrested earlier for organizing the criminal gang.
Today’s trial of the Sasna Dzrer group members who seized a Yerevan police station last fall, ended with most of the defense attorneys absent from the courtroom and with the judge failing to discuss the issue of lifting a court ban on telephone calls and videotapes used introduced as evidence against the defendants.
Judge Gabrielyan continued the trial. Taking into consideration that attorney Lusine Sahakyan left for vacation, and most likely other attorneys will also go on vacation, Judge Gabrielyan suggested that all the parties on this case take a leave from August 1 to 15.
The attorney says he visited Kyureghyan at the Nubarashen Penitentiary after the trial and that his client told him that police hit him more than 100 times.
Judge Artoush Gabrielyan halted proceedings because the court bailiffs and security police banned the defendants’ attorneys from entering the court after they refused to be subjected to body searches and to present identity papers.
Yerevan police have released well-known activist Argishti Kiviryan after detaining him earlier this afternoon on suspicion of carrying a weapon.
Babloyan, in his acceptance speech, said he was honored that his colleagues expressed trust in him and promised to work diligently in the name of implementing pan-national objectives.
Babayan was arrested on March 22, together with two other individuals, on suspicion of illegally obtaining and attempting to smuggle a 9K38 Igla Russian portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile.
Yerevan police today tried to disperse relatives, who have been staging a sit-down protest outside the prosecutor’s office for the past two weeks, of those charged with committing violence against officers of the law during last June’s melee that occurred in the Sari Tagh neighborhood of the Armenian capital.
Gurgen Asatryan, a candidate for parliament on the HAK-HHzK ticket, alleges that soldiers waiting to vote at the 37/14 polling station in the Tavoush community of Koghb are being instructed to cast their ballots for the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA).
The plaintiffs, environmentalisst and residents of Gndevaz, are seeking to overturn the analyses of the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Nature Protection stating that mining in the region will have no substantial negative effects on the environment.
164 candidates will contest single seat mandates, and 136 will run on a proportional basis.