The lawyers, Marzpet Avagian and Emanuel Ananian, said the assault happened at a police station in Yerevan late on Thursday during the arrested young man’s interrogation. They said they were kicked and punched by several policemen after their client stood by his allegations that he was ill-treated in police custody.
The officers then warned them against publicizing the incident, the lawyers told a joint news conference with Simon Babayan, the head of Armenia’s Chamber of Advocates, the national bar association.
Babayan said police representatives told him that Avagian and Ananian insulted the officers at the police station. He dismissed that explanation, saying that even if the lawyers indeed did so the police had no right to respond with violence.
The national police issued no statements on the incident. Contacted by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, its press office said only that an “instance of hooliganism” was registered at the police department of Yerevan’s Erebuni district and is now investigated by another law-enforcement body, the Investigative Committee. The committee promised to comment later on.
A commission of the Chamber of Advocates dealing with lawyers’ rights strongly condemned the alleged assault. In a statement, it also demanded that law-enforcement authorities conduct an objective investigation and prosecute “all guilty persons.”
The office of Armenia’s Human Rights Defender also pledged to investigate the incident. It said that any violence against lawyers is unacceptable.