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Opposition Lawmaker Freed For Now


Armenia - Opposition deputy Mher Sahakian (left) is released from custody, Aprl 3, 2023.
Armenia - Opposition deputy Mher Sahakian (left) is released from custody, Aprl 3, 2023.

An opposition member of Armenia’s parliament was released from custody on Monday three days after punching a pro-government colleague during an ill-tempered meeting of a National Assembly committee.

It remained unclear whether prosecutors will move to indict Mher Sahakian of the main opposition Hayastan alliance.

The violence reportedly followed a shouting match between Vladimir Vartanian, the chairman of the parliament committee on legal affairs, and Sahakian and other opposition lawmakers. Vartanian, who represents the ruling Civil Contract party, suffered an injury to his left eyebrow and was taken to hospital before police detained Sahakian.

Sahakian received a hero’s welcome from other Hayastan deputies and activists as he walked out of a police detention center in Yerevan. Echoing their statements made on Friday, he claimed that he hit Vartanian because the latter stood up and walked menacingly towards him.

“I resorted to necessary self-defense,” Sahakian told journalists.

Vartanian insisted, however, that he did not charge at Sahakian. He again blamed opposition members of the panel for bitter exchanges that marred the meeting held behind the closed doors.

Under Armenian law, law-enforcement authorities cannot hold a parliament deputy in detention without a charge and without the National Assembly’s permission for more than three days. The Office of the Prosecutor-General did not say whether it will ask the parliament controlled by Civil Contract to lift Sahakian’s immunity from prosecution.

“If the investigating body reckons that I crossed that line [of self-defense] I’m ready to answer,” Sahakian said in this regard.

The ruling party’s parliamentary group has strongly condemned the 35-year-old oppositionist’s actions, saying that he must be held accountable. Some of its members themselves assaulted opposition colleagues on the parliament floor in 2021. They were not prosecuted for that.

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