On September 8, judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan of the Central/Nork-Marash first instance court of Yerevan sentenced chief editor of “Times-Yerevan” newspaper Arman Babajanyan to four years in prison.
First, A. Babajanyan said his final word. He said that the case brought up against him should make citizens of Armenia worry about the future.
“Since the first day that this case began, with its mechanisms, falsifications, and other ways, forces us Armenian citizens to once again think about the tolerance of all that is currently going on in the country. The state official, who accused me, really impressed me with his final word; his picture of freedom was really impressive. I must say that after pleading guilty in court and regretting what I have done, I feel more free in jail than the accuser Kotikyan and his friends feel being out of jail,” said Babajanyan.
Babajanyan said that he had tried to avoid serving in the army throughout the years by presenting student documents while studying in different U.S. universities and medical prescriptions. However, the army registration office didn’t take any of that into consideration and rejected having Babajanyan take an examination.
“By being afraid of investigation, I have found myself in an even worse situation. I must say that I prefer having spent the two years serving in the Armenian army, rather than spending each day in a foreign country. So, I had more serious reasons for leaving Armenia nine years ago, than not serving in the army. Whether I’m in jail or free, my homeland Armenia is my home. It appears that I must be imprisoned for living my fullest in my homeland. If that’s so, then I am paying the price and I will accept any period sentenced by the court,” he said.
Afterwards, judge Mnatssakan Martirosyan went to the consulting office and after three hours of “thinking”, reached his verdict. In fact, during the reading of the sentencing, accuser Zhanna Kotikyan had left the courtroom and the people present considered this as “disrespectful”.
In any case, the court first declared the accusations against Babajanyan stealing official documents as invalid based on the 2nd section of the 324th article of the Armenian criminal code. Besides that, the judge said that the “d” subtext of the 3rd section of the 6th article of the European Human Rights and Freedoms Convention had been violated, according to which the criminal has the right to question the witnesses suing him and Babajanyan was recognized as innocent based on the 2nd subtext of the 2nd section of the 324th article of the criminal code of Armenia for acquiring official documents. However, the court did recognize him as guilty for escaping the army by presenting false documents based on the 2nd subtext of the 2nd section of the 327th article of the criminal code and the judge sentenced him to four years in prison. With this verdict, as the people present claimed, M. Mnatsakanyan proved once again that the case brought up against Babajanyan had a political context. According to the Armenian criminal code, the criminal spends 1-3 months in jail or is imprisoned for 1-5 years. The court didn’t take into consideration the fact that Babajanyan had never been sentenced to prison and that he had confessed. It is worth mentioning that there was a time when Mnatsakanyan hadn’t “severely” punished Aghamal Harutyunyan for murdering Poghos Poghosyan “as a result of a careless push-and-shove” and only sentenced Harutyunyan for two years in prison. The same judge reached a similar verdict for some other well-known criminals.
The verdict for Babajanyan was so unexpected that when the judge read it, some people were astonished. Although they didn’t yell “shame” or other similar comments, (nobody doubted the fact that the court was going to sentence Babajanyan to prison), however they didn’t react to the verdict for a long time. Only after M. Martirosyan left the courtroom did the gatherers scream “bravo, shameful”.
In any case, Babajanyan’s colleagues are of the same opinion about the verdict:
“That was a cynical verdict. It reminds me of the saying, which is politically and historically given the name for Franco, who during his term followed the following principle: “Anything for friends, the law for enemies.” The same thing is going on in Armenia and Robert Kocharyan is giving everything to his circle of friends and is tolerant towards them, while he applies the laws for enemies or people who don’t like him,” said chief editor of “Armenian Times” daily Nikol Pashinyan. Editor of “Fourth Power” newspaper Shogher Matevosyan said:
“The authorities shouldn’t’ have the right to sentence people, when they are the ones that should be sentenced.”
Editor of “Aravot” newspaper Aram Abrahamyan had this to say:
“Babajanyan’s trial had a political context to it from the beginning to the end. If he wasn’t the chief editor of an oppositional newspaper, police wouldn’t trace his past in order to find something discrediting. On the other hand, if we go deeper into the issue, I don’t really think that Arman did the right thing.”
In any case, Arman Babajanyan is going to file a complaint with his lawyer in 15 days.