Prime Minister of Armenia continues to fight against the war party, and this fight is so important for Nikol Pashinin that this week he made an unprecedented step in the history of his country - he appeared before the court as a witness to talk about an incident during the 2017 election campaign. This “incident” was a gross violation of public order with the use of violence against head of the election headquarters of the Yelk block in 2017, Hayk Sarkisyan. Arthur Ayvazyan, who had previously been sentenced to 15 years in prison for killing the most important witness in the October 27 case (shooting in the parliament in 1999), is accused of attacking Sarkisyan.
According to Armenian media, speaking as a witness in the court of under Yerevan's jurisdiction, Pashinyan said: "It was in the evening of March 31, 2017, the last day of election campaign before the parliamentary elections. They called me and said that an armed attack was committed on several members of our headquarters, in particular on Hayk Sarkisyan, who was chief of staff. Before the incident, I saw remaining campaign booklets in the headquarters, and asked Hayk to distribute them... Then they called me and told about the incident..." Prime Minister said that after that phone call, he went to the campaign headquarters, where he learned about the details of what happened. Staff members left the building and saw that there was no flag on the mobile headquarters car, in addition, there was paint on their promotional poster. They tried to find out who removed the flag, and one citizen said that he did it. “He said that we had no right to use this flag. After that, our people asked him to return the flag, and citizen who took the flag hit Hayk Sarkisyan. Members of our headquarters intervened to prevent further strikes. This man pointed a weapon at Hayk, one of those present quickly responded, hit his arm and took away the weapon. We called the police, told what had happened,” Pashinyan said.
He explained his presence at the court session is necessary because every citizen of Armenia, after being notified by the court or investigator, should come to the court. At first glance, Pashinyan's decision seems to be another populist PR stunt by “people's premier”. However, it shouldn't be forgotten that the Prime Minister began “judicial revolution” long ago. Even at a rally in Yerevan on August 17, he declared that the old cadres in judicial system interfere with justice. By that he meant Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan's appointees - a group of Karabakh separatists - a war party that came to power through blood.
At the same August rally, Pashinyan announced that the case on events of March 1, 2008, was finally fully resolved, and none of the perpetrators could escape.
Interestingly, after the riots in Yerevan in 2008, Pashinyan himself was put on the wanted list and sentenced to 7 years in prion on charges of organization of those events. However, after a year and a half, he was released under amnesty.
The fight against representatives of the previous government began last summer. The Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan made a decision to arrest second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan. CSTO Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov, former Defense Minister Michael Harutyunyan, ex-MP, General Manvel Grigoryan, former Defense Minister Michael Arutyunyan were also accused...
