AUTHORITIES DROP COUP CHARGES AGAINST FOUR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 001020

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/17/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM KJUS AM
SUBJECT: AUTHORITIES DROP COUP CHARGES AGAINST FOUR
OPPOSITIONISTS

REF: A. YEREVAN 994

B. YEREVAN 974

YEREVAN 00001020 001.2 OF 002


Classified By: DCM Joseph Pennington, reasons 1.4 (b,d).

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SUMMARY
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1. (C) On December 17, Armenia's Special Investigative
Service (SIS) announced it was dropping its charges against
four prominent opposition politicians who supported Levon
Ter-Petrossian in February's disputed presidential election.
A senior SIS official said he dropped the charges due to a
lack of evidence of the four oppositionists' involvement in
what investigators say was an attempt to stage a coup d'etat.
The dropping of the charges coincidentally occurred the same
day that the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) was discussing
whether to recommend the suspension of Armenia's voting
rights at PACE for lack of compliance with resolutions that
censured the authorities' handling of the post-election
crisis. Republic Party Chairman Aram Sargsian told Emboff
that while notifying him of the dropped charges on December
17, the SIS asked him and the three others to date their
acknowledgment of decision forms as of December 15 -- a sure
sign, he claimed, that the GOAM wanted to use the event to
curry favor with PACE. END SUMMARY.

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SIS DROPS CHARGES AGAINST PROMINENT OPPOSITIONISTS
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2. (SBU) The Special Investigative Service, the law
enforcement agency tasked with the criminal inquiry into all
March 1-related cases, announced on December 17 that it had
decided to drop charges against four prominent oppositionists
who had supported ex-President Levon Ter-Petrossian (LTP) in
his February presidential bid. The four had been charged
with attempting to "usurp state power" and provoking "mass
disturbances" in the wake of the violent March 1 clashes
between opposition protesters and security forces that
resulted in ten deaths. Vahagn Harutiunian, a senior
official from the SIS, said he decided to drop the charges
late last week because of lack of evidence to support the
accusation that the four were involved in what investigators
call an opposition attempt to stage a coup d'etat.

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THE FOUR OPPOSITIONISTS
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3. (SBU) The four oppositionists who saw their charged
dropped include Aram Sargsian (head of the opposition
Republic Party) ; Ararat Zurabian (Head of the Armenian
National Movement political party); Karapet Rubinian (former
Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly); and Gurgen
Yeghiazarian (the former Deputy Head of Armenia's National
Security Service, or ex-KGB, and nephew of LTP confidant and
former NSS Head Davit Shahnazarian). Following the March 1
clashes, all but Aram Sargsian had been detained and
arrested; however, Zurabian, Rubinian and Yeghiazarian were
released from jail over the summer on preventive measures,
namely their undertaking not to leave the country while their
investigation was underway. Interestingly, Sargsian was
never taken into custody although out of the four, he
arguably played the largest role in supporting LTP's election
bid.

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CHARGES DROPPED TO APPEASE PACE
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4. (C) Aram Sargsian and Khachik Kokobelian, the Deputy Head
of the Armenian National Movement, told Emboff on December 18
they were certain that the authorities decided to drop the
charges in order to curry favor with PACE. The same day that
the charges were dropped, PACE's monitoring committee was
meeting in Paris to discuss whether to recommend the
suspension of Armenia's voting rights for its lack of
compliance with two PACE resolutions from April and June,
which demanded, among other things, the immediate release of
supporters of LTP who were arrested on "seemingly artificial
or politically motivated charges." Sargsian said that when
the SIS issued him notification of the dropped charges on
December 17 and asked him to sign an acknowledgment form,
they also asked him to date the form December 15. Kokobelian
said that all four individuals had been asked to
retroactively date the forms, which they did.


5. (C) Sargsian and Kokobelian said that, based on

YEREVAN 00001020 002.2 OF 002


confidential information they had received from contacts in
law enforcement agencies, they had known at least a month ago
that the charges would eventually be dropped. They added
that the cases of the four, who were not in detention, were
being held in reserve as "an offering" that the authorities
would use at an appropriate time, in this case to stave off
censure from PACE.

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COMMENT
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6. (C) The dropping of the charges against the senior
oppositionists is a welcome development, even if intended
only to appease PACE. This is the third time in as many
weeks that the authorities have taken an action to either
commute sentences, release on bail, grant pardon, or in this
case, drop charges, against LTP supporters. In addition,
these four oppositionists are by far the highest-level
political figures whose fate the authorities have ruled on to
date, with the seven most prominent finally to go on trial
December 19. After nine months since the March 1 violence,
we might finally be seeing some movement from the authorities
on the release of political detainees.
YOVANOVITCH