Armenia’s Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a three-year prison sentence given to Gagik Jahangirian, a former deputy prosecutor-general strongly opposed to the government, for his alleged resistance to police officers that arrested him more than a year ago.
Jahangirian was sacked and arrested the day after delivering a passionate speech at an opposition rally in Yerevan in which he accused the Armenian authorities of rigging the February 19, 2008 presidential election and described opposition candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian as its rightful winner.
Although the police claimed at the time that Jahangirian planned to “destabilize the situation in the capital,” he was eventually charged only with resisting a special police unit that ambushed his car just outside the city on February 23, 2008. A district court in Yerevan convicted him last March of disobeying police orders, hitting one police officer and tearing another’s jacket.
“We wanted to show them that we have no expectations from them and don’t want to hear their illegal decision which they had made long ago,” Sahakian told RFE/RL.
She said her client will take his case to the higher Court of Cassation “in the knowledge that it too will make an illegal decision.” Jahangirian simply wants to exhaust all possibilities of legal action in Armenia to be able to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, added the lawyer.
Jahangirian is one of more than 50 Ter-Petrosian loyalists remaining in prison. The Armenian opposition and human rights groups view them as political prisoners, a characterization rejected by the authorities.
Although the police claimed at the time that Jahangirian planned to “destabilize the situation in the capital,” he was eventually charged only with resisting a special police unit that ambushed his car just outside the city on February 23, 2008. A district court in Yerevan convicted him last March of disobeying police orders, hitting one police officer and tearing another’s jacket.
Armenia -- Former Prosecutor-General Gagik Jahangirian pictured during his high-profile trial in Nov2008.
Jahangirian rejected the charges as groundless and politically motivated throughout the high-profile trial. Both he and his lawyer, Lusine Sahakian, were conspicuously absent from the Court of Appeals when it announced the rejection of the ex-prosecutor’s appeal. 
“We wanted to show them that we have no expectations from them and don’t want to hear their illegal decision which they had made long ago,” Sahakian told RFE/RL.
She said her client will take his case to the higher Court of Cassation “in the knowledge that it too will make an illegal decision.” Jahangirian simply wants to exhaust all possibilities of legal action in Armenia to be able to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, added the lawyer.
Jahangirian is one of more than 50 Ter-Petrosian loyalists remaining in prison. The Armenian opposition and human rights groups view them as political prisoners, a characterization rejected by the authorities.