Today Armen Matevosyan, a PAP member, as we have informed, pled guilty of handing out election bribes before the National Assembly election and making a few residents of Yerevan vote for the Prosperous Armenia Party. During a conversation with www.aravot.am, in response to our question what punishment he expected for that crime, he said, “I think everything will be mild.” As for what the PAP member meant by “mild,” he didn’t say, “I don’t know, I have no idea.”
We inquired what role the PAP had played in handing out election bribes, whether the party didn’t support him, he assured, “No, I did all by myself.” We asked to clarify whether he wanted to support his own party just handing out election bribes out of his own pocket, he replied, “Yes.”
The PAP member stated that besides the residents “caught” for taking election bribes, he hadn’t handed out election bribes to any other people.
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It is interesting that although Armen Matevosyan had pled guilty, one of the residents considered as witnesses to the case – Tsovinar Kostanyan – assured during a conversation with us that she hadn’t either seen or known Armen Matevosyan or taken an election bribe from him, “It wasn’t an election bribe, it was aid, we applied to the PAP and they helped us with 10000 AMD. We were in poor social conditions, I live with my mother and my 10-year daughter, my husband died and I am presently not employed. My mother applied to the headquarters of different parties, the City Hall etc. for help from time to time, she asked the PAP for help.”
She stated that they had bought food for 10 thousand AMD, “We needed that for food; we often didn’t have food. We didn’t perceive it as an election bribe; we perceived it as aid.” Tsovinar Kostanyan assured that she hadn’t received an election bribe from any other party during the election period.
Let us mention that according to our legislation, both the one who gives and the one who takes a bribe must be punished.
In response to our question why he had chosen a speedy trial, A. Matevosyan’s counselor Karen Karapetyan said, “The prosecutor didn’t object; that is why we decided to choose a speedy trial, since 2/3 of the maximum punishment must be used in that case and in this case, the maximum punishment is 3-5 years in prison, but a fine is also provided for. We expect that the punishment will be only in the form of a fine.”
Later on, when it came out that the prosecution had proposed to put Armen on probation for 3 years, counselor Karen Karapetyan said in this regard during a conversation with us that they wouldn’t like Armen Matevosyan to be convicted, besides, it provided for limiting certain freedoms, he couldn’t be absent from the country, thus, they proposed to use only a fine.
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
