In Armenia, court rejects petition on changing restraint of human rights activist Arshaluis Akopyan

The chair of the trial on the case of Arshaluis Akopyan, and employee of the Helsinki Association, accused of applying violence to policemen, has rejected the petition lodged by advocate Gayane Khachatryan on changing the restraint of her client.

Ms Khachatryan has presented the petition and noted that the court has all the grounds to change the restraint for a more lenient form; however Judge Gagik Avetisyan rejected the petition.

Then the court has listened to evidences of the suffered policemen - Ashot Sargsyan and Vage Badalyan. They told the court that that had brought a summons to Akopyan home, prescribing to appear at law enforcement bodies for evidencing about the violations at elections to the Yerevan City Mayoralty on May 31, of which Akopyan was a witness.

According to their version, when they brought the summons, Akopyan put his signature in a wrong place; then, he corrected his mistake. However, when the policemen were about to leave, Akopyan started abusing and beating them. The policemen called their station and asked for help. Then, with the help of two other policemen Akopyan was brought to the Tsentralny District Police Department. When asked by the advocate what the policemen did when Akopyan abused them, and whether they beat Akopyan, they answered that they did not beat him, but politely invited to take the police car.

According to Akopyan, the policemen promised to bring him to the station and break all his bones.

Advocate Gayane Khachatryan told journalists that the case includes only the policemen's evidences, which is a rough violation of the law.