– Mr. Harutyunyan, in his latest interview Levon Ter-Petrosyan published the resolution of the head of Kentron and Nork-Marash court Zhora Vardanyan on recording Alexander Arzumanyan’s phone conversations on February 19. He also announced that Zhora Vardanyan had made such decisions related to other members of the campaign headquarters as well. Do you think such resolutions and decisions are legal?
– We should consider this issue from two points of view: from the point of view of law and rights. From the point of view of the law there is no violation if they have applied to the court and the latter has allowed them to do that. However from the point of view of rights it is very frustrating because in the future it may turn out that they recorded not only Arzumanyan’s phone conversations but other oppositionists as well. It will show that in fact administrative resources have been used against opposition activists. This is a single document but they say there are other such documents as well. Of course it is not desirable. Our country is not democratic and we are concerned of that fact too. I also think that there might have been such things with us too: they may have recorded our conversations too.
– From the legal point of view what may happen to those decisions to record phone conversations?
– It is possible to change things to make them be consistent with the law, but on the other hand it may be a pressure against alternative opinions. In fact there is an element of totalitarian rule here. If we say that there should be different opinions, it means that there should be opposition as well. Even the authorities say that we can’t have a democratic system without opposition. If it turns out that such things have been done systematically, it means that they are saying one thing, and doing another thing. I wish it could not be proven that it has been done systematically.
– Can these facts of recording phone conversations have negative affect on the expected PACE resolutions?
– I can’t say. It is a bad thing.
– Another document published by Levon Ter-Petrosyan concerns the decision of investigator of the special investigation department Vahagn Harutyunyan as of March 1 stating that the police operation in the Liberty square started at 6a.m. Deputy police head Alexander Afyan and Hovhannes Tamamyan have announced that the police arrived at the square at 7a.m. that day.
– We have mentioned that in the report and wrote that there was no need to do that urgently without waiting till morning. It would reduce the uncontrolled risks. Also it is surprising that the police says different thing concerning the time than the prosecutor’s office. Tell you frankly I have still questions without answer. We have a number of important questions concerning the weapons and sticks found in the Liberty square as well. It is logical that those people who had brought those things to the square would use it, especially when they knew about the police operation to take place 12 hours in advance. The reason I am saying this is the fact that one of the police officers was charged for discovering that information to the demonstrators beforehand. In other words, the allegation that everything proceeded so fast that they could not act is not justified. There are questions without answer.
– Levon Ter-Petrosyan also published the list of addresses issued by the Republican bureau, which states that ex-president Robert Kocharyan could not be elected president in 1997 because he was not registered in Yerevan. What do you think about this?
– Honestly I don’t get the point of this announcement. In order to answer to this question correctly they have to answer to the following question as well: is residency of Karabakh considered residency of Armenia?
– It is a long time that the arrested people connected with the events of March 1 are being tried. What do you think about this process?
– We are not able to follow all the court proceedings, but we are consistently monitoring that process and collecting facts. When the court proceedings finish we will ask the courts to provide us with more detailed information and will examine all those cases. We have expressed our opinion about that. There will be either an announcement or report. However I don’t want to give any estimation while the court proceedings are in process because it may be considered as interference in the court proceedings.
– Do you mean the secondary and Supreme Court proceedings as well? That process may last long.
– Yes, if they apply to upper instances we will have to wait. While the court proceeding is in process we don’t have the right to interfere, we can only monitor. However it is not excluded that before that time we may publish facts, but not opinions, if we see that such facts are important and need to be published.
P.S. We applied to the justice ministry spokeswoman Lana Mshetsyan to get answer to the question whether residency of Karabakh is considered residency of Armenia. The latter said that they would answer to our question in several days.