The three arrested opposition members of Armenia’s parliament accused of
organizing the 2008 post-election clashes in Yerevan will appeal to the National
Assembly on Thursday to demand evidence of their alleged crimes from prosecutors
and discuss it at an urgent session.

In a joint letter to speaker Hovik Abrahamian, Sasun Mikaelian, Hakob Hakobian
and Miasnik Malkhasian will demand that Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian be
summoned to the assembly to substantiate the charges. According to Hovik
Arsenian, an opposition lawyer, they also want to be allowed to attend the
session.

The government-controlled parliament lifted the three lawmakers’ immunity from
prosecution at Hovsepian’s urging just days after the March 1 deadly clashes
between opposition protesters and security forces. They were charged with
attempting to “usurp state authority” and provoke “mass disturbances.”

They as well as four other prominent supporters of opposition leader Levon
Ter-Petrosian on a collective trial in mid-December.

Armen Martirosian, a leader of the opposition Zharangutyun party allied to
Ter-Petrosian, backed his jailed colleagues’ demands on Wednesday. “Our
political prisoner colleagues are right to write such a letter,” he told RFE/RL.
“I think that the accusations are really baseless.”

“These seven persons have never been in the same room together [before the
trial,]” said Arsenian. “Not all of them know each other personally.”

But Galust Sahakian, one of the leaders of the parliament’s pro-government
majority, made clear that their appeal will be rejected. “The case is being
heard by a court,” Sahakian said, adding that a parliament debate would
constitute an undue interference in the judicial process.

The defendants believe, however, that the Yerevan court is controlled by the
government and can not be objective. They have refused to stand up and show
respect for the presiding judge in protest against what they see as a sham
trial. The trial remains effectively deadlocked because of that.

Two senior representatives of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly
(PACE) discussed the fate of the seven oppositionists during their recent
meetings in Yerevan with Prosecutor-General Hovsepian and other Armenian
officials. “We have not received evidence that the seven opposition leaders
organized violent actions with premeditation with the aim to usurp the state
power,” they said in a subsequent report submitted to the Strasbourg-based
assembly.

John Prescott and Georges Colombier noted at the same time that the defendants’
behavior in the courtroom is “clearly not conductive to the pursuit of the court
proceedings.”