On Detaining Girls: ‘It was Different in 2010,’ Says Police Officer in Tigran Araqelyan Trial

Tigran Araqelyan was able to sit in the courtroom at his trial on Tuesday — recall, the Armenian National Congress (HAK) activist had been prohibited from attending the past two court dates as Judge Gagik Poghosyan had applied a sanction against him.

Police officer Hayk Najaryan, named as a victim in the case, continued his testimony in court on Feb. 14.

Recall, on Aug. 9, 2011, seven youth from the opposition bloc were detained after an incident with police near Yerevan’s Swan Lake. The next day they were arrested, while four — Areg and Vahagn Gevorgyan, David Kiramijyan and Sahak Muradyan — were released on Aug. 12 and then two more — Artak Karapetyan and Sargis Gevorgyan — were released later. The only one still detained is Tigran Araqelyan.

During the trial, Sargis Gevorgyan recalled that Najaryan wrote in his earlier testimony that the activists had cursed at him and asked who specifically cursed at him.

Najaryan said that he told Tigran Arakelyan “calm down; there’s a police officer before you” to which Arakelyan said, “Come on — you’re an officer?” Najaryan also mentioned that Davit Kiramijyan pushed him at him.

The officer also said that in order to take control of the situation they detained the youth. According to Najaryan, there were also girls on site, who were interfering with their work of detaining the youth.

In that case, Sargis Gevorgyan asked, why didn’t you detain the girls as well? To which Najaryan said, “How should we have detained girls?”

Tigran Araqelyan recalled a similar altercation between the activists and police on May 31, 2010, which resulted in eight girls being detained.

“It was different then; this is different,” the officer responded.

Najaryan also insisted that Artak Karapetyan wasn’t on the scene, but Araqelyan reminded him that it was he (Najaryan) who helped Karapetyan to get up when the other officers were beating Karapetyan.

The judge then directed his own questions to the victim on the stand. He asked him who hit him or cursed at him, to which the officer repeated that Tigran Araqelyan told him “come on — you’re an officer?” Najaryan said Sargis Gevorgyan didn’t personally curse at him, but “cursed at their system” while Kiramijyan attacked the right side of his neck. The officer couldn’t say, however, whether Kiramijyan’s blow was intentional or not.

Prosecutor Hakob Martirosyan asked that the court make public Hayk Najaryan’s pre-trial testimony, noting that there seem to be contradictions between his pre-trial testimony and the one he gave in court.

The defense objected, saying there were no contradictions. Nevertheless, the judge sustained the motion, saying that the testimony will be read out loud at the next court date on Feb. 22 at 12 pm.