Lawyer’s Remarks on Use of Term “War Prisoner” by Varuzhan and “Terrorist” by NSS
“Use of the term ‘terrorist’ was serious news by NSS,”Ara Ghazaryan, lawyer at “Rule of law” NGO, told 168.am, reflecting to the statement issued by NSS, that the surrendered members of the group are terrorists. Until now NSS didn’t use the term ‘terrorist.’
First and foremost, touching upon the statement by “Sasna Tsrer” armed group member Varuzhan Avetisyan, that the group is surrendering as a ‘war prisoner,’ the lawyer said that the term isn’t a legal category.
‘War prisoner’ is proper during a war, military operations, maybe he said it formally. At the moment they are arrested, we have detained, arrested people. ‘War prisoner’ term is used during military clashes. It’s a declarative formulation. It’s not a legal category,” Ara Ghzaryan said.
Regarding the statement issued by NSS, according to A.Ghazaryan, if the term ‘terrorist’ was used, it means the case is being taken to the domain of the article on terror.
“The term ‘terrorist’ hasn’t been used for this period. Yet two days ago those operations weren’t even named terrorist corpus delicti, and it’s so, if the operations are directed against the population, civil persons. However, if NSS uses such a term, they have facts that those operations were directed not only against the authorities, the policemen, but against civil persons as well. Use of these terms shows that they intend to apply Article 217, maybe not towards all the members of the group.
This is quite a new phenomenon. In former statements hostage-taking, building, seized building, illegal purchase and use of weapons were used. These days NSS didn’t use the term ‘terrorim,’ if it uses now, it has facts and purpose to apply Article 217, or I don’t understand why they used that word. Some facts show that some activities were directed against the population. Throughout these days arrests have been recorded, 3-4 people have been detained, who were to realize blasting among the population…
Yesterday’s statement said that they fired shots in the direction of Sari Tagh district, these facts may be taken to the field of article 217. If NSS uses that term, we need to wait and see what accusation will be brought after the arrest, in a period of 72 hours,” Ara Ghazaryan said.
By Araks Martirosyan
