Epress.am News from Armenia
The Investigative Committee of Armenia has decided to dismiss charges against civic activist Vardges Gaspari for lack of evidence of criminal activity, Gaspari's lawyer, Tigran Gyurjyan, told Epress.am Thursday.
Gaspari, who was stationed as an observer at the 9/15 and 9/16 polling stations in Yerevan during the December 6 constitutional amendments referendum, was being accused of obstructing the work of the election commission. According to prosecutors, he “exerted psychological pressure” on the members of the election commission, resulting in them being too intimidated to properly perform their duties.
As part of the same police investigation, the investigator had decided late in February to send Gaspari to a psychiatric assessment after the activist refused to answer the official's questions, asking him instead whether he had been involved in the criminal proceedings in connection with the post-election incidents in March, 2008. Subsequently it was revealed that both of the investigators in Gaspari's case, Levon Melkonyan and Ashot Ohanyan, had indeed investigated the March 1 murders, and the General Prosecutor's office overturned the decisions to subject Gaspari to psychiatric assessment, saying that it was unwarranted.