The Rule of Law

The Yerevan Press Club reports that the investigation into the firebombing of the car owned by Nikol Pashinian, the editor of Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper has been stopped. However, Pashinian still alleges that MP and business tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan was responsible for the attack.

Haikakan Zhamanak pointed out the fact that the investigation body did not even interrogate Gagik Tsarukian. The newspaper also reminded that the investigator on the... case, Ashot Kostanian..., was also in charge of the investigation of attacks on journalists during [the] opposition rally on April 5, 2004. As has been reported, in June last year two of the media attackers, Hrayr Harutiunian and Ashot Avetisian, were sentenced by court to a fine of 100 thousand AMD (abut $ 180) each (see details in YPC Weekly Newsletter, June 4-10, 2004). This sentence, the trial itself, along with the preliminary investigation on the events of April 5 were qualified by a number of journalistic organizations of Armenia to be a farce. The Aravot daily of February 8 made a supposition that the same Ashot Avetisian took part in the major and bloody skirmish on the evening of February 4 in Yerevan. This supposition was confirmed.

http://www.ypc.am/eng/?go=newsletter#2

Interestingly, I was one of those journalists attacked on 5 April 2004 and met Kostanyan, the investigator on many occasions. It should have been a simple case of me providing a written statement to the police on but instead, they tried to tell me what to write. When I refused and wrote what I wanted, I was told by Kostanyan to remove certain parts that he considered "irrelevent." For example, the part where I said that the police stood by and watched while Hayk Gevorkyan of Haykakan Zhamanak was attacked, ignoring my requests for them to intervene.

Kostanyan continued to say that this was irrelevent to my account of what happened that day but I told him that if they continued to request that I take it out, I would refuse to sign. It stayed in.

However, what should have taken 1-2 hours took 4 days in total while they strung out procedings. Likewise, even though I gave a statement to the police and the General Prosecutors Office of the Kentron District, I was not called in to identify the two men (out of a dozen responsible for the attack) and was not informed of the date of the court trial which I therefore missed. Now, we learn that one of those two men has been identified as being involved in the recent shoot out in Nubarashen. Allegations that these men were the bodyguards of the Head of the Kentron District, Tsarukyan and other oligarchal figures also seems to warrant further investigation given coverage of this recent event.

According to some parliamentarians, these events are not any indication of a breakdown in the rule of law but rather the lack of any law on bodyguards. Nevertheless, I can't help but ask why Ashot Avetisian wasn't genuinely prosecuted for the 5 April 2004 attack on journalists. If he had been, it's likely that he wouldn't have been involved in the recent shootout.

Isn't that what the law is meant to be all about?

Posted by Onnik on February 13, 2005 | TrackBack | Email to a friend