Judge Artur Nahapetyan examining the appeal against Ashotyan’s detention, is a close friend and patron of Argishti Kyaramyan. Tigran Atanesyan

Judge Artur Nahapetyan, who is examining the appeal against Ashotyan’s arrest, and Argishti Kyaramyan are friends and patrons.

Lawyer Tigran Atanesyan wrote about this on his Facebook page.

“The appeal against Armen Ashotyan’s arrest was accepted by the judge of the RA Appellate Anti-Corruption Court ArturNahapetyan.

The examination of the appeal will be conducted in the written form: the judge did not want to conduct an oral examination. The decision will be made on July 17. In my deep conviction, it does not matter which judge of that court will examine my complaint, because whoever s/he is will reject the complaint, because Armen Ashotyan is a political prisoner and the real and only author of his imprisonment is known to everyone.

However, the choice of judgeArturNahapetyan is, to say the least surprising. The direct perpetrator of the political persecution against Armen Ashotyan is the chairman of the RA Investigative Committee A.Karamyan who, by a very “random” coincidence, is judge A. Nahapetyan’s close friend and patron. Moreover, if we compare A. Karamyan and A.Nahapetyan’s biography in the last 5 years will make it obvious that they are not only friends, but friends who enjoy mutual trust, because A. Nahapetyan by “random” coincidence worked in all the institutions headed by A. Karamyan.

This relationship formed in the building of Shirak Region Prosecutor’s Office, and later, patronage, is certainly not a bad thing, if it did not actually become a circle for subjecting people to political persecution. It is clear to all reasonable people that the pyramid of anti-corruption courts is actually the reincarnation of the “Stalinist troika”, whose job has nothing to do with the fight against corruption, but in fact it is only serving the repression of the current patrimonial regime. It is interesting that in the case of Armen Ashotyan, this obviously illegal and political persecution is also spiced up with a “hot pepper” of patronage, Atanesyan wrote.