Armenia’s Court of Appeals on Thursday essentially upheld the lengthiest of
prison sentences given to arrested supporters of opposition leader Levon
Ter-Petrosian so far.

Harutiun Urutian, who managed one of Ter-Petrosian’s campaign offices in the northwestern Shirak region during the Armenian presidential race, was among more than 100 opposition leaders and members arrested following the February 19 election. He was charged with assaulting a proxy of establishment candidate Serzh Sarkisian at a local polling station and thereby obstructing the work of its election commission on election day.

In what was the harshest election-related punishment in Armenia’s history, a
regional court sentenced Urutian to seven years in prison late last month.
Urutian rejected the charges as politically motivated and appealed against the
verdict. His lawyer, Tamara Yayloyan, insisted during court hearings in Yerevan
that he is innocent and must be acquitted.

However, the Court of Appeals only agreed to shorten the ruling by one year, upholding the charges brought against the oppositionist.

With none of the arrested oppositionists acquitted so far, the same fate most probably awaits an appeal filed by Hovannes Harutiunian, a Ter-Petrosian proxy in Yerevan’s Arabkir district who was sentenced to 18 months in prison last month for keeping 15 bullet cartridges at home. Prosecutors claim that he bought and possessed the ammunition illegally. A district court Yerevan dismissed Harutiunian’s assurances that he had purchased it for his hunting rifle registered with the police.

The Court of Appeals is to rule on the appeal later this month. Both Urutian and
Harutiunian were greeted with dozens of opposition supporters chanting
“Freedom!” as they appeared before different panels of judges on Thursday.
Similar scenes could also be observed in virtually all other court hearings
involving arrested Ter-Petrosian supporters.

Justice Minister Gevorg Danielian warned on Thursday that with such noisy
actions opposition sympathizers are only reducing chances for the acquittal of
their comrades. “Unfortunately, not only do the courtrooms turn into sites of
disturbances but there are threats addressed to judges,” he said. “It is
extremely hard to expect a judge to be impartial after that.”

Speaking to RFE/RL, Danielian also defended guilty verdicts against
oppositionists arrested during the dispersal early on March 1 of Ter-Petrosian’s
tent camp in Yerevan’s Liberty Square. All of those detainees were charged with
resisting police. Most of them have already been tried and sentenced to up to
three years in prison. Some pleaded guilty to the accusations and got suspended
jail terms.

The verdicts handed down in those cases were based on testimony given by police
officers, something which Danielian believes does not run counter to the due
process of law. “If we don’t trust a policeman, then by the same token we can
not trust anyone,” he said.

Danielian also dismissed reports that the more prominent of the detainees have
been barely questioned in custody. The lawyers of those detainees say this only
shows that the cases brought against their clients are unsubstantiated and
politically motivated.

According to Danielian, just because an arrested oppositionist has virtually no
contact with law-enforcement officials does not mean that the ongoing
investigation into what the Armenian authorities call an opposition attempt at
coup d’etat has stalled. “It’s just that investigative tactics and rules of
investigation are such that such breaks may sometimes occur,” he said.

The “urgent release of the persons detained on seemingly artificial and
politically motivated charges” is a key point of a resolution on the
post-election developments in Armenia adopted by the Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) last month. The Armenian authorities have pledged
to comply with the demand, while maintaining that there are no political
prisoners in the country. Only a handful of well-known opposition figures have
been set free so far.

By Hovannes Shoghikian and Anna Saghabalian