Lidya Mantashian, who actively participated in massive antigovernment protests led by Galstanian last year, was among 15 suspects arrested and charged five months ago with plotting “terrorist acts” in a bid to seize power. The court has repeatedly refused to release Mantashian from custody since they and three other Galstanian supporters went on trial in August.
It has freed instead several other defendants pending a verdict in the case. One of them was moved to house arrest and two others released from house arrest on Thursday.
By contrast, the judge presiding over the trial granted prosecutors’ request to extend Mantashian’s arrest for a second time. Unlike other jailed defendants, including Galstanian, the young woman is still not allowed to have friends, relatives or other persons visit her in prison.
“I get the impression that I’m the most dangerous suspect in this fabricated criminal case,” she told the court during the latest session of the trial.
Mantashian suggested that she is being punished for exposing embarrassing “information about some officials.” She did not elaborate.
Mantashian also remained defiant in the face of the grave accusations levelled against her and other defendants. “It’s a great honor for me to be an assistant to His Eminence Bagrat,” she said.
Galstanian and his supporters were arrested on June 25 amid Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s controversial efforts to oust the top clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church opposed to his concessions to Azerbaijan. The case against them is essentially based on the audio of Galstanian’s wiretapped conversations with his associates, excerpts from which were publicized by investigators later in June. Defense lawyers accused law-enforcement authorities of doctoring the recordings and distorting their content after being given full access to them in August.
The authorities have also arrested and indicted dozens of other critics of Pashinian since June in what the Armenian opposition calls an intensifying government crackdown on dissent. They have denied any political motives behind the high-profile cases.
Opposition lawmakers insisted that the cases were fabricated on Pashinian’s orders as they rallied hundreds of supporters outside the Office of the Prosecutor-General on Thursday to demand the release of all individuals regarded by them as political prisoners.
“We are here today, first of all, to express support for our compatriots who continue to be illegally prosecuted for their political positions and activities,” Artsvik Minasian of the Hayastan alliance told the crowd before it marched to a court building where Galstanian and his supporters have been standing trial.
Another Hayastan leader, Ishkhan Saghatelian, said Armenian opposition groups should join forces to “create adequate mechanisms to resist repression by the authorities.”