Jailed former Armenian parliament official ‘banned from having contact with external world’

Days after being held by the law enforcement authorities over allegations of “breaching the martial law”, the former chief of the National Assembly’s staff was prohibited from “having any contact with the external world”, including telephone conversations and meetings with family members.

Gevorg Gorgisyan of the opposition Bright Armenia party reported the news on Facebook late on Weednesday, adding that the measure was imposed shortly after his meeting with Ara Saghatelyan in his detention ward.

Speaking to Tert.am, Saghatelyan’s lawyer, Mihran Poghosyan, said the measure of restraint was applied to the wrong person “despite the justifications” behind the court ruling.

In his words, the investigator in the case “is totally authorized to ban the measure” upon seeing no reasoning or logic.

Poghosyan added that they intend to dispute the ban on the level of the prosecutor general and appeal, upon necessity, to a first instance court to demonstrate “with what methods this state is fighting the political opponents”.

“By communicating with his underage child or family, Saghatelyan cannot possibly harm the criminal case given that he has nothing to do with this proceeding,” he said, disputing also the legitimacy of the earlier search in his client’s office.

The advocate also insisted upon the entry of the defense team’s complaint into the data base of the Court of Appeals.

The Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction on Wednesday satisfied the motion to detain Saghatelyan for two month after the National Security Service (NSS) charged the former parliament staffer with “spreading reports in violation of the martial law regime”.