It turns out that in Echmiadzin they have a completely different understating about the campaign. In the first stage of the campaign in Echmiadzin several fireworks were organized – one in the form of shots, the other arson. The third one is the mysterious disappearance of people. They say that in the past the residents of the city were worrying when somebody got lost. Now they are not.
Pre-election shots
On Saturday, on April 7th, at about 12:30 AM, an unknown car pulled over near Hakob Hakobyan’s brother’s car (Hakob Hakobyan had the car that night), and fired a series of gunshots in the direction of the car, which was parked on Manushyan street of Zvartnots village. As mentioned by Hakobyan, fortunately there was no one in that car at that time.
Tensions were rising on Monday in an electoral district south of Yerevan where the top pro-government candidate, the recently retired General Seyran Saroyan, was implicated in the attacks reported over the weekend against his two challengers. Hakob Hakobyan, a controversial member of Armenia’s outgoing parliament, claimed that unknown gunmen shot at his car while he dined in a restaurant in the town of Echmiadzin on Sunday. He pointed the finger at Saroyan, who has been endorsed by the governing Republican Party of Armenia (RPA). But Saroyan strongly denied the allegations, saying that his rivals themselves staged the attacks in order to discredit him. “We suspect that police officers were among the shooters,” Hakobyan told RFE/RL. He alleged that they acted on orders from the regional governor who in turn received instructions from Saroyan. “The governor is doing everything to create an atmosphere of fear in the area ahead of the elections,” Hakobyan said. “He is trying to throw mud at me without feeling ashamed,” countered the feared general, who holds sway in Echmiadzin and the surrounding area. “I guess even you won’t believe that I couldn’t have done such a cheap thing,” he said. “Seyran Saroyan has once again proved that he is nuts,” shot back Hakobyan. “How can someone shoot at himself?” Police in Echmiadzin said they have launched a criminal investigation into the reported shooting. Saroyan resigned as commander of Armenia’s Fourth Army Corps and was discharged from the armed forces earlier this year to be able to run for parliament. The move provoked speculation that the HHK is trying to make sure that Hakobyan, who joined the ruling party last year, is not reelected to the National Assembly. Hakobyan, better known as Choyt, was charged with assault and tax evasion after allegedly instigating a mass brawl outside a gas station near Echmiadzin last October. In a further blow to the disgraced parliamentarian, the district election commission has registered another candidate affiliated with the RPA and named Hakob Hakobyan. The latter is currently trying to ensure that his influential namesake is disqualified from the race, accusing him of forging voters’ signatures to win registration. A court in Echmiadzin continued to consider the obscure candidate’s complaint, endorsed by Saroyan, amid tight security on April 9. Special police units from Yerevan were deployed in and round the courthouse to prevent possible clashes between supporters of the rival sides. “We have made commitments to different programs and we think compliance is in our interest,” he said. “We want to become part of the European family.”
Pre-election kidnapping
According to our information, on Saturday evening Hakobyan went to the place of one of the initiators, who later took back his signature. He invited him to go somewhere for a face-to-face talk to find out why he’d refused the signature. After the talk, this initiator disappeared and he was only found on Sunday evening in the restaurant “Zvartnots” belonging to Hakobyan. It turned out that another member has also disappeared. They had both refused their signatures. In this regard Hakobyan said, “I got to my car without bodyguards. I went and asked the neighbors where that person lives. I went out and talked to people. There were about 10-15 people outside. I told the son of that man that I wanted to talk to his father and check whether the rumors were right or not. This guy used to work in our headquarters, but he later disappeared. On the day the two guys disappeared, we sent a letter to the police. As they were the ones who disappeared, we thought it wasn’t them who wrote the appeal because they were not engaged in that process. I went to find out whether my supporter was found or not. I went to their house all alone. People who go to kidnap somebody don’t go alone. People learn these kinds of things from movies, that you don’t drive your car to somebody’s house to kidnap him/her. I went there alone and spoke to his father about the garden, asking why they don’t cultivate the land. He complained that there are problems with irrigation water and so on. And I asked him to go to the headquarters and check some papers, which his son had signed and now says it’s not his signature.” According to Hakobyan, that person wasn’t in his restaurant “Zvartnots”. “If he was there, why would I look for him? I brought the father of that man to show the signature. There were also other people from their village that came to me. That guy is in Seyran’s house, kept as a hostage.” In the end Hakobyan rushed to add that he went to that guy’s house not to find out whose signature it was but to find out where he was. The reason Hakobyan decided to find his supporters 6-7 days later remains unclear. “On the first day we sent an appeal to the police and informed that two of our supporters disappeared, and that we were worried where they were. They can’t tell us that we kidnapped anybody because we filed an appeal on that same day,” said Hakobyan, and added that one of the guys he visited used to be the director of one of his offices. “The police don’t do anything. They are busy with the elections. They take a lot of people and beat them,” insists Hakobyan. “They keep my supporters in jail for several days without any reason. The governor supports all those acts. They work on behalf of Seyran. If Seyran gathers 21% I’ll refuse my candidacy.”
Later, information about this kidnapping appeared on the website of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office. In that information, the suspect was Hakobyan. According to the mentioned information, on April 7 Avag Ghazaryan, resident of Vagharshapat village, informed the RA police forces that RA NA deputy Hakob Hakobyan had kidnapped his father Sahak Ghazaryan. The investigation revealed that Hakob Hakobyan had forcibly put Sahak Ghazaryan into his black BMW with the help of his driver and a certain Haykaz. Further on, they drove Sahak Ghazaryan to cottage 4 of the “Zvartnots” restaurant complex. In Sahak Ghazaryan’s words, Hakob Hakobyan promised 5 000 USD if his son Vanik Ghazaryan didn’t appear in court and give testimony against Hakobyan on April 9, 2007. An action was brought under Article 131 of the RA Penal Code. The prosecutor’s office of Armavir is in charge of the investigation. Hakobyan refuted all this information when talking to us yesterday. “There was no case of kidnapping. I went alone to their village. The neighbors showed me the house. That guy walked to my car. I was driving. We both went to my headquarters. I didn’t hit him or anything.” According to Hakobyan, the apartments of his 7 supporters were searched yesterday. “They are looking for weapons. They want to prove to me that the ones who shot me were my friends. They are looking for a criminal in my own headquarters. The people working in my headquarters are so intelligent that if you call them criminals they might commit suicide,” says Hakobyan.
Pre-election arson
On Sunday morning at 4:00 a.m. the headquarters of another candidate of the same district, Susanna Harutyunyan, was set on fire. She only found it out at 9:30 a.m. Harutyunyan also blames Saroyan for all this. She rules out that it was organized by her other opponents – the two Hakobyans. “One competitor is just formal. I am not speaking about him. There was a murder attempt made on the other Hakobyan. I mean General Saroyan,” said Harutyunyan. According to the latter, due to the fire all the furniture of the 4 rooms of the headquarters was completely burned.