Yesterday opposition activist and chief editor of Haykakan Zhaman newspaper Nicol Pashinyan, who had been on the run for more than one year, voluntarily visited the general prosecutor’s office. Nicol walked to the prosecutor’s office through the park in front of the prosecutor’s office and told the guards that he had decided to surrender voluntarily. Despite the fact that Nicol walked to the prosecutor’s office voluntarily and all this long process was taken by journalists on camera, the prosecutor’s office tried to introduce that they had arrested the opposition activist. Nicol was taken to the police department of Kentron community from the prosecutor’s office, after which he was taken to the national security service. Reminder: according to the bill on amnesty adopted by the parliament on June 19, those convicted to up to five years of imprisonment are subject to amnesty. According to the same decision, the mentioned bill does not concern the ones who are searched and fail to surrender to the police or to the court till July 31. It is also worth mentioning that the PACE petitioned the Armenian government to release the ones who surrender in the mentioned term immediately. If the government respected the opinions of the PACE, Nicol would be set free yesterday, at least based on a signature not to leave from the city. However, to hope that such thing would happen would so naïve as to hope that after the events of March 1 they would not launch so nonsense criminal case against Nicol. We will see what will happen to Nicol’s case in several days. Yesterday Nicol also talked to journalists and answered questions.
