Epress.am News from Armenia
4:55 pm Arsen Sargsyan has today contacted his mother on the phone and told her that he was coming home. “He said he was fine; he had just gotten scared. He said he would soon come back home. Now that the media have published the story, I am not as worried,” Mrs. Donara told Armtimes.com.
2:15 pm Arsen Sargsyan, brother of the man who has been arrested on suspicion of aiding the members of the Sasna Tsrer armed group, went missing on Saturday evening. Speaking to Hetq.am, their mother, Mrs. Donara expressed the worry that her second son might have also been arrested.
The woman said the entire family had come to Yerevan on February 9, the day of Artur Sargsyan’s arrest; however, on February 11, Arsen went back to their house in the village of Byuravan in Ararat province to get some personal items. Upon approaching the house, Sargsyan saw police cars and a group of uniformed and plain-clothes police officers standing by the house’s open gates. Her son, according to Mrs. Donara, did not dare to enter the house and decided to return back to Yerevan. He recounted the events to his mother, gave her his mobile phone, and left in an unknown direction. Mrs. Donara has had no news from him ever since. The woman is worried that her son might have been arrested or that he has gone into hiding in the fear that he would be detained.
“We are not this state’s enemies; we’ve always lived a decent life, have always helped others in their time of need. And now, one of my sons is on hunger strike in prison, and the other one has gone missing. He must have gotten afraid of something; he must have seen or felt something,” Mrs. Donara said. “I’m so worried that I don’t sleep. I’m wandering the streets, asking people whether they’ve seen my son. What do they want from my family? I’m afraid [the police] might have planted something at our house – drugs or weapons – to have grounds for arresting Arsen. My family is being persecuted.”
On July 26, Artur Sargsyan drove through the police cordon around the seized police station to deliver food to the members of the Sasna Tsrer armed group. He was subsequently arrested and charged with assisting the gunmen in hostage-taking and illegal firearms and ammunition transportation.