13:59, 20 November 2008

Armenia: Smbat Aivazyan, ex-minister of state revenues, sentenced to two years

On Wednesday, November 19, the general court of Yerevan communities Kentron and Noek-Marash convicted Smbat Aivazyan, a member of the Board of the "Republic" opposition party and former minister of state revenues, to two years of imprisonment and fined him by 300,000 drams (about 1000 US dollars).

Mr Aivazyan is a supporter of ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who stood for presidency and is in opposition to the incumbent President Serzh Sarkisyan.

"The court has found Aivazyan guilty under part four, Article 235 ("Illegal bearing of gas, cold steel or throwing arms"), and part one, Article 316 ("Use of violence to a power representative"), of the Criminal Code of Armenia," said Alina Engoyan, press secretary of the Cassation Court of Armenia, as quoted by the IA "News-Armenia".

Smbat Aivazyan is one of the authors of the statement sent to Thomas Hammarberg, Supreme Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, in which the public figures refused to meet him. The signatories motivated their refusal by passiveness of European bureaucratic structures towards violations of human rights in Armenia.