The court of first instance of Shengavit community continues the interrogation of witnesses on the case of the chief editor of the daily paper "Haykakan Zhamanak" ("Armenian Time"), Nikole Pashinyan about one of his charges - violence against a police officer, article 316, part 1. The incident took place on the 23^th of October, 2007, on the crossing of Koryoon and Abovian streets. The number of witnesses testifying for the case is 19, and only 4 of them have been questioned so far. During one of the trials Vazgen Dabakhian, the injured, testified and insisted that Nikole Pashinyan had hit his legs. The injured also noted that he had no actual injuries and hadn't requested for medical assistance.

"There was fuss and scuffle, the crowded people stopped obeying the demands of the police" and then Pashinyan approached him and hit his right leg with the loud-speaker.

Two of the examined witnesses, Vazgen Serobyan and Karen Grigoryan, told one thing while describing the incident and another thing while answering the questions of the lawyers. Particularly Karen Grigorian, who assured that knew Pashinian as the editor of a newspaper, testified that he saw Pashinian and the demonstrators hitting the policemen, but when Lousineh Sahakian, a lawyer, started questioning him in detail, everything got mixed up in his mind. The defenders required details, demanding to describe precisely the place from where he had seen that all. After his description it turned out that he couldn't have noticed Nikole's hit from that distance. Moreover, he didn't remember any details about the hit itself, he just repeated all the time that he had seen the moment when Nikole hit the policeman. Eventually, the trial unsettled him so much that judge Mnatcakan Martirosian had to make a remark and call him to silence. This was the witness who was asked by Pashinian's defenders whether he assisted the police. Despite the negative answer, the defenders tried to find out why he had been often observed at the Central Police Investigation Department. The witness encountered difficulties while answering this question.

During the pre-examination witness Grigoryan was also invited to the NSS (National Security Service) to have a cross-interrogation with Pashinyan. He told in the court, "The interrogation was not successful because Pashinian was all the time shouting "Fight, fight, till the end", then I was given a paper asserting the failure of the interrogation, which I signed".

Human rights activist Vardan Harutiunyan, who always follows Pashinyan's trial, said about the above mentioned episode to the "Capital", "Those witnesses don't even know Pashinyan, this was the reason why they were taken to the NSS, to be shown who Pashinian is. That is why the testimonies of the witnesses are ridiculous."

Pashinian's defender in court, Lousineh Sahakian, is sure, that the witnesses' evidence is false. "By now the testimonies of all the examined witnesses and of the injured do not coincide, which bespeaks their obviously false testimonies. These criminal cases have shown, that they strive to bring more witnesses to the court, in order to make the impression that they base their accusation on numerous testimonies. But you can see as well, that many of the testimonies of these witnesses are generally of no worth".

The two other interrogated witnesses, Rita Yepremyan and Varsenik Zourabyan, gave false information about the time of the incident. They mentioned the day-time, whereas it had taken place around 19⁰⁰ in the evening. They didn't know Pashinyan and hadn't seen him on the day of the incident. They had seen only crowded people and heard some noises, nothing more. Witness Vika Yepremian realised that they were demonstrators, as they had flags in their hands.

By the way, we should note, that the only TV channel, following Nikole Pashinyan's trial and showing it on TV is "Galan" of Gyumry.

Zhanna Alexanian