Epress.am News from Armenia
Armenia’s Special Investigation Service (SIS) has decided to discontinue the criminal proceedings over the incident between Heritage party lawmaker Rubik Hakobyan and Hraparak newspaper reporter Vahe Makaryan due to a lack of criminal intent, Tert.am reports.
Makaryan said in an interview with the news website that the SIS did not take into consideration the fact that the lawmaker had punched him in the face and made its decision based solely on Hakobyan’s testimony, according to which he had “only given the reporter a slight slap.” “Even if it were true, does the SIS believe that a lawmaker should be allowed to get away with slapping a journalist?” Makaryan said.
The reporter added that he intends to appeal against the SIS decision and prove that Hakobyan has in fact punched him in the face, which, according to Makaryan, has also been found to be true by forensic experts.
Recall, lawmaker Hakobyan had allegedly cursed at and punched the reporter during a break of a December 7 National Assembly sitting. According to Makaryan, the incident took place in one of the Assembly halls, with no cameras around, after he asked Hakobyan a question about his past membership with Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), also known as Dashnaktsutyun, and his current relationship with the nationalist party.
The Heritage lawmaker, for his part, claimed in a subsequent conversation with reporters that he had “only tried to teach the journalist a lesson for having behaved like a hooligan.”