Seven Years instead of Six
00:00, January 20, 2010 | Press Release | Right to Fair Trial
Judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan sentenced today the editor-in-chief of “Haykakan Zhamanak” daily Nikol Pashinyan to 7 years of imprisonment.
The judge made an unprecedented decision, he claimed a stricter punishment than the accusing party wanted. Prosecutor Koryun Piloyan claimed to sentence N. Pashinyan to 2.5 years of imprisonment by article 316 of RA Criminal Code and to 6 years by article 225 of the same Code.
The court cleared him of article 316 but increased the other 6 years and made seven in stead. The judge had hardly finished reading the verdict when the people in the courtroom started to shout “Shame!”, “traitor!”, “you are executing an order!”
Before that, police officers who did not allow most of Armenian National Congress (HAK) members to enter the courtroom surrounded the yard of the court. Most of the people hoped the judge would pass a fair sentence. “To tell you the truth, I believed that he could have conscience, could not be so mercenary. Imprisoning an innocent is equal to murder”-said HAK adherent Ophelia Margaryan.
Stepan Demirchian, the head of Armenian Democratic Party was also in the court today. “The court carried out an explicit order,” charged Stepan Demirchian. “That is, they want to keep Nikol Pashinian in prison at any cost. This was one of the links of the chain of trials and the ones who were really guilty of the events of March 1 are still free”-he said. To the question of A1+ “If the outcome of the election in precinct 10 were different, could the verdict be different today?” Mr. Demirchian responded: “The outcome could not be different.”
A representative of the Congress, Davit Shahnazaryan assessed today’s verdict as a political order.
Former political prisoner Zhirayr Sefilyan was not surprised by the verdict: “There is no fair trial in our country, all the decisions are political. This is one of the illegal actions, one of the crimes for which they will undoubtedly be held accountable.”
Member of the CEC Zoya Tadevosyan was in the court, too. She said that she expected a fair decision: “Finally, judging a fair person is a hard job. I expected fair trial, especially when Nikol was cleared with the first article. But then they judged impartiality, justice judged the impartiality, judged an honest person, our struggle, it judged the future of our country, our children, all of us. Today we are in the open air but we were judged”-said Mrs. Tadevosyan.
Nikol Pashinyan’s lawyers informed “A1+” that they are going to appeal the verdict though they don’t have any expectations. For a few hours after the verdict Nikol’s supporters and HAK representatives shouted: “shame!”, “Serzhik go away!”, “murderers!” In spite of the rainy weather, the police could not manage to disperse those people. Commander Rober Melkonyan ordered his employees to make a wall and push the people away. The people said they would not leave the court room as long as Nikol was not taken away.