{"id":284073,"date":"2018-03-20T14:28:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T10:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/epress.am?p=284073"},"modified":"2018-03-20T14:28:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T10:28:47","slug":"yerevan-court-sentences-prominent-oppositionist-to-10-5-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2018\/03\/20\/yerevan-court-sentences-prominent-oppositionist-to-10-5-years-in-prison.html","title":{"rendered":"Yerevan Court Sentences Prominent Oppositionist to 10.5 Years in Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width=\"425\" height=\"344\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CEbHvx9DoFE?wmode=transparent\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen> <\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>The Shengavit district court in Yerevan, presided over by judge Tatevik Grigoryan, today sentenced Founding Parliament opposition group leader, Karabakh war veteran Zhirayr Sefilyan to 10.5 years imprisonment. The other five defendants &#8211; Gevorg Safaryan, Sasunik Kirakosyan, Galust Grigoryan, Hrayr Topchyan and Hovhannes Petrosyan &#8211; were given prison sentences ranging from 2 to 5.5 years.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2sefilyan.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-284065\" src=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2sefilyan.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Upon hearing his sentence of 3.5 years\u2019 imprisonment pronounced, defendant Nerses Poghosyan stood up from his seat and began swearing at prosecutor Hakob Yenokyan, which resulted in him being taken out of the courtroom by bailiffs and police officers. Zhirayr Sefilyan and Gevorg Safaryan (sentenced to 5.5 years behind bars), on the other hand, remained visibly calm as the judge read out the verdict. Later on Nerses Poghosyan\u2019s lawyer Arayik Papikyan told reporters that at the moment of the announcement of the verdict Sefilyan had said to the court: \u201cBravo, good job! SImilar verdicts will soon be pronounced for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were expecting this ruling. We never had any illusions about the court. Justice in Armenia died today, and March 20 should henceforth be marked [as a national mourning day]. Sefilyan had to be silenced because he posed a significant threat to the political leadership.\u201d Papikyan said, adding that the defense intended to challenge the verdict at the Court of Appeal. \u201cIt\u2019s a purely formal procedure that we need to go through before we are able to apply to an international court; we are not very hopeful that we\u2019ll achieve justice here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/3sefilyan-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-284064\" src=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/3sefilyan-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Recall, <span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #003366;\" href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2018\/03\/03\/charges-against-sefilyan-based-on-unsubstantiated-allegations-lawyer-insists.html\">Sefilyan<\/a><\/strong><\/span> was arrested last summer for having allegedly formed an armed group and plotting to organize an armed takeover of the capital&#8217;s main communication buildings. For that purpose, according to the indictment sheet, the oppositionist had organized an illegal acquisition and transport of weapons and ammunition and their storage in various locations in Yerevan. Sefilyan and his supporters, however, claim that he is being persecuted for his political views, namely, for opposing territorial concessions to Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.<\/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>\u201cWe were expecting this ruling. We never had any illusions about the court. Justice in Armenia died today, and March 20 should henceforth be marked [as a national mourning day]&#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":284066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[66033],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284073"}],"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=284073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}