June 22, 2007

Heritage: The “Armenian Watergate” Case Continues

Yerevan—Yesterday, June 21, the Central and Nork-Marash Court of First Instance, Judge Samvel Tadevosian presiding, heard for a second time—and today ruled in favor of—Heritage Party Chairman and newly-elected Member of Parliament Raffi K. Hovannisian’s complaint against the Armenian Prosecutor General’s Office. In his judgment, Tadevosian annulled the Prosecutor General’s decision refusing to file criminal charges concerning the “Armenian Watergate” and effectively instructed him to reopen the investigation.

The case sought a judicial remedy for the theft last year of constitutionally-protected information from the computer database of the party’s headquarters, and was formally brought because of the Prosecutor General’s final refusal to institute criminal proceedings, as law and evidence required, with regard to this Armenian version of the Watergate scandal. Plaintiff Hovannisian’s cause of action was resubmitted by attorney Karen Mezhlumian and Heritage MP and civil rights lawyer Zaruhi Postanjian, while the defendant was represented by Prosecutor Karo Karapetian.

“Though the evidence at hand sufficed for—and even mandated—the launch of a criminal action, the Prosecutor General had affirmed the Yerevan police department’s and local prosecutor’s denial of our legal request for a full investigation into the case of the computer bandits,” stated Zaruhi Postanjian.

As a reminder, on February 13 the Central and Nork-Marash Court had denied Hovannisian’s petition to compel the Prosecutor General to file criminal charges, but on April 20 the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed this ruling. The appeals panel decided to remand the instant case to the lower court for a substantive reexamination of Hovannisian’s complaint.

“The consolidation of public, civic trust toward the bodies of state, including the Prosecutor General’s Office, is most crucial,” Raffi Hovannisian said in his closing statement. “We must leave no place in Armenia for legal arbitrariness, and no citizen of our land should ever be given basis to think that since this case is being ‘watched over’ by certain ‘sources’ of power it will not reach a normal and just resolution. The Court’s judgment must light the way toward true justice, a real investigation, and the full accountability before the law of both the masterminds and accomplices of this dastardly crime.”