Armenian GPO offers to cut Pashinyan's term

On June 8, Vardan Avetisyan, head of the department for supervising application of punishments and other compulsion measures of the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) of Armenia, addressed his written petition to the head of the corrective establishment (CE) "Nubarashen" asking to recalculate the remaining term of imprisonment of Nikol Pashinyan, editor of the oppositional newspaper "Aikakan Zhamanak".

On May 25, 2010, under decision of the head of the CE "Nubarashen", a reduction of Pashinyan's remaining term was made, and it was halved (making three years one month and one day) making the final term of imprisonment equal to three years ten months and 29 days, as the "Nayinfo" Agency reports.

The GPO's statement runs that Pashinyan was arrested on July 1, 2009, and had committed his incriminated offence before the amnesty, which was announced on June 19, 2009.

Therefore, the calculation of the remaining part of the term should start from July 1, 2009. That is, the appointed and not served imprisonment for the total term of seven years should have been halved according to the amnesty (down to three years and six months), and the final punishment term should have also made three years and six months, the "News-Armenia" Agency reports.