{"id":239961,"date":"2013-09-25T20:32:33","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T16:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=239961"},"modified":"2013-09-25T20:32:33","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T16:32:33","slug":"armenian-activist-intends-to-defend-his-suspected-attacker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2013\/09\/25\/armenian-activist-intends-to-defend-his-suspected-attacker.html","title":{"rendered":"Armenian Activist Intends to Defend His Suspected Attacker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Civil society activist Mihran Margaryan [pictured], who was attacked on&nbsp;Aug. 25&nbsp;along with fellow activist Babken Ter-Grigoryan, did not recognize the two suspects, S. Babayan and S. Purtoyan, who previously confessed to police. Speaking to Epress.am, Margaryan said the two boys, for unknown reasons, gave a false testimony, saying they beat the activists.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAccording to the suspects, Mihran and Babken tried to persuade them to &quot;go to the venue of the rally,&quot; near city hall where activists were staging a sit-in; they tried to resist for a long time, but the activists cursed them, after which the two suspects assaulted them.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">&quot;I don&#39;t recognize those boys. They&#39;re not the ones who beat us. If they bring them to court, I&#39;ll probably defend them. They don&#39;t even have an attorney,&quot; he said.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAccording to him, the two suspects were released on bail, but the charges were not withdrawn and the investigation continues.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRecall, activists earlier had told police that at around&nbsp;1:30 am on Aug. 25, seven people beat them near Ararat Hotel. First, a group approached Mihran and Babken and asked if they were participating in the demonstrations outside city hall. Having received a negative response, the group left. Later, however, another group approached and asked the same question; not believing the answer, the thugs attacked the activists. They were joined by the first group of people. Suspects Babayan and Purtoyan pleaded guilty twenty days later, on Sept. 14.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to the suspects, Mihran and Babken tried to persuade them to &#8220;go to the venue of the rally,&#8221; near city hall where activists were staging a sit-in&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[50205,50204,34871],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}