A parliament deputy who was until recently Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) leader Gagik Tsarukian’s chief bodyguard went on trial on Thursday on charges of violent assault.
Eduard Babayan was arrested in July last year hours after a 50-year-old man in Yerevan was hospitalized with serious injuries. The latter claimed to have been beaten up at a compound of Armenia’s National Olympic Committee headed by Tsarukian. He said he was hit by Tsarukian before being repeatedly kicked and punched by Babayan and another person.
Both Tsarukian and Babayan strongly denied the allegation. The burly bodyguard was charged even though his alleged victim, Vyacheslav Harutiunian, later retracted his incriminating testimony.
Babayan was freed on bail in August. He was elected to the Armenian parliament on the BHK ticket in December.
At the beginning of the trial Harutiunian again said that he did not consider himself to be a victim in the case.
And Babayan again pleaded not guilty. “I wasn’t involved in any beating. I was not in that room. I was upstairs together with Tsarukian,” he said.
During the break in the court hearing Harutiunian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that Babayan did not beat him. “I am on very good terms with him… Mr. Tsarukian and Eduard Babayan were not physically present [during the incident]. We had no argument, we are good friends,” said Harutiunian, adding that he received his injuries after slipping and falling down.
One of the witnesses in the case, a police officer who served at the National Olympic Committee compound, said that he did not see Babayan at that day despite his preliminary testimony read out by the prosecuting attorney in which he said that he saw Tsarukian enter the building together with his bodyguard.
Armenian media have repeatedly implicated Tsarukian’s bodyguards -- and Babayan in particular -- in violence, including against opponents of former governments, in the past. The BHK leader, who is also one of the country’s richest men, always denied those claims.
In a police video released in July, Babayan’s alleged victim said that he was attacked after imploring Tsarukian to help ensure that Armenian law-enforcement authorities withdraw an international arrest warrant issued for his son accused of draft evasion.
The young man is a boxer and Russian national who was told to serve in Armenia’s armed forces after receiving Armenian citizenship in order to compete for the South Caucasus country in international tournaments.
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