An Armenian court on Friday convicted an opposition member on a charge related to last year’s post-election unrest and sentenced him to two years in prison.
Grigor Voskerchian walked free from the courtroom as part of a general amnesty declared by the authorities last month after spending about a year and a half in prison.
Voskerchian, a former mayor of the town of Abovian (some 20 kilometers to the northeast of capital Yerevan) and local manager of former president and current opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian’s campaign in last year’s presidential election, faced a charge of organizing a mass disorder along with six other oppositionists in the notorious ‘Case of Seven’.
But according to the verdict published by Yerevan district court judge Gagik Poghosian, Voskerchian was found guilty of ‘making public calls for a violent overthrow of the constitutional order’.
“I was to be found guilty in conditions of the existing political order,” Voskerchian told RFE/RL after the publication of the verdict.
Defense lawyer Stepan Voskanian said that by convicting his client on another count, the court in fact admitted “the absence of any element in Grigor Voskerchian’s actions suggesting that he planned or organized a mass disorder.”
The amnestied oppositionist said he would appeal the verdict at a higher court.
Voskerchian, a former mayor of the town of Abovian (some 20 kilometers to the northeast of capital Yerevan) and local manager of former president and current opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian’s campaign in last year’s presidential election, faced a charge of organizing a mass disorder along with six other oppositionists in the notorious ‘Case of Seven’.
But according to the verdict published by Yerevan district court judge Gagik Poghosian, Voskerchian was found guilty of ‘making public calls for a violent overthrow of the constitutional order’.
“I was to be found guilty in conditions of the existing political order,” Voskerchian told RFE/RL after the publication of the verdict.
Defense lawyer Stepan Voskanian said that by convicting his client on another count, the court in fact admitted “the absence of any element in Grigor Voskerchian’s actions suggesting that he planned or organized a mass disorder.”
The amnestied oppositionist said he would appeal the verdict at a higher court.