Epress.am News from Armenia
On Friday, March 27, representatives of the Compulsory Enforcement Service visited the home of Karabakh war veteran Volodya Avetisyan, who was sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment for fraud and attempted fraud, and informed his family members that they had to pay an amount of $2,000 within 3 days, writes Hraparak paper.
In an attempt to help the family, Volodya Avetisyan’s friends organized a fundraising initiative which has raised $200.
“Very little money was collected, and because we had no time to wait, one of our mutual friends pawned his house, and we payed the money to the state,” Avetisyan's friend, Gagik Sarukhanyan, said.
The fundraiser is continuing because the Avetisyan family intends on returning the money loaned from Avetisyan’s friend.
The following are accounts opened in Ameria Bank:
1570018296030200 – AMD
1570018571170101 – US dollar
The bank accounts are under Volodya Avetisyan’s wife name, Margarita Baghramyan.
Recall, that according to the indictment, Avetisyan received $2,000 from Henrikh Zakaryan to exempt his grandson from compulsory military service and attempted to receive $500 from Albert Matosyan to transfer his son to another military unit.
During the entire investigation, Avetisyan did not admit to the charges; moreover, he repeatedly said the charges against him are a result of political persecution, as he was one of the organizers of protests by war veterans demanding better treatment and improved social conditions. In one court session, Avetisyan said that after one of the protests to improve the social conditions of war veterans he was warned that he will be framed.
In parliament on March 12, Armenian National Congress MP Nikol Pashinyan said that Avetisyan's arrest was politically motivated.
In response to Pashinyan’s statement, Seyran Ohanyan said that he met with Volodya Avetisyan and came to an arrangement that Ohanyan would discuss the matter with the “country’s leadership”, but Avetisyan violated the arrangement and did not wait for the result of the discussions and continued organizing the protests. Ohanyan claimed that Avetisyan's arrest was not politically motivated.