A relevant presidential bill was made public after a key committee of the Armenian parliament discussed and approved it behind the closed doors. The National Assembly will almost certainly pass it at an extraordinary session on Friday.
The highly complex bill stipulates the amnesty would apply to those oppositionists who were arrested in connection with the March 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan and subsequently sentenced to up to years in prison. There are about 50 such individuals at the moment.
Several other supporters of opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian, notably former Deputy Prosecutor-General Gagik Jahangirian, were arrested in the days leading up to the deadly March 1 clashes between security forces and opposition supporters. Those of them who were sentenced to more than three years’ imprisonment will not be eligible for early release from prison.
These provisions mean that the amnesty will not apply to some of the jailed oppositionists. Those may include parliament deputies Miasnik Malkhasian, Hakob Hakobian and Sasun Mikaelian that are facing separate trials on charges of organizing the “mass disturbances.”
Trial prosecutors have demanded six-year sentences for Hakobian and Malkhasian and a nine-year jail term for Mikaelian. The latter is also accused of illegal arms possession. Court verdicts in the cases are expected soon.
“Because judicial processes are not over, nobody can now say for certain whether or not the amnesty will apply to them,” David Harutiunian, chairman of the parliament committee on legal affairs, told journalists after the committee meeting attended by Justice Minister Gevorg Danielian. Still, Harutiunian admitted that the amnesty will at least not be applicable to Mikaelian.
Another lawmaker, Victor Dallakian, cited Danielian as telling the committee that the amnesty will affect only about 90 percent of the 55 or so Ter-Petrosian loyalists remaining in jail. “Some of them will be freed, while the others will have their prison sentences shortened,” Dallakian said.
Nor will two other prominent opposition figures, who went into hiding in March 2008 to avoid arrest, necessarily be eligible for pardon. Those are parliament deputy and wealthy businessman Khachatur Sukiasian and Nikol Pashinian, a newspaper editor who played a major part in massive demonstrations organized by the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition in the wake of the February 2008 ballot. Under the bill in question, they need to surrender to the police by July 31 in order to have any chance of being cleared of the riot charges.
Lawyers for the opposition leaders currently on trial were quick to criticize the proposed amnesty. One of them, Stepan Voskerchian, claimed that only half of the detainees would be released from jail as a result. “The amnesty should be extended to all political prisoners,” he said.
“The amnesty does not solve all problems. Thousands of questions remain,” said Melissa Brown, the wife of former Foreign Minister Aleksandr Arzumanian. The latter managed Ter-Petrosian’s election campaign and is now facing a five-year prison sentence.
Voskerchian and Brown spoke to RFE/RL after meeting with two senior representatives of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) which will again discuss the political situation in Armenia at its summer session next week. The Armenian authorities hope that the amnesty will deter the PACE from imposing sanctions against Yerevan. The Strasbourg-based body has repeatedly demanded the release of all Armenian oppositionists prosecuted on “seemingly artificial or politically motivated charges.”