Today, ‘Aravot’ received a notification from the RA Ministry of Defense Investigative Service, therewith it is offered to be present at the RA Defense Investigative Service EIC investigator L. A. Petrossyan’s office on September 9 as to testify as a witness in criminal case No. 32102413. From the earlier conversations, it became clear that the subject of the interrogation was to be our publication “Did Surik Khachatryan’s detained son shoot under the influence of drugs?” issued on June 4. The investigator was interested in how the information of pretrial secrecy is published. Although, it is apparent that “Aravot” is not for the case, and we didn’t affix signature regarding non-disclosure of pretrial secrecy. In the above-mentioned publication, in particular, we wrote, “According to the information of Aravot.am, during the shooting in front of the former governor of Syunik Surik Khachatryan’s house, on June 1, his son, detained Tigran Khachatryan, was under the influence of drugs. Aravot.am clarified this information from Khachatryan’s defender, President of the RA Chamber of Advocates Ruben Sahakyan. “Many expertise have been assigned, I still do not know the results. The results will be ready no later than 20-25th of this month. I do not have any such information that Tigran was under the influence of drugs, and even if it was so, then it can not play any role”, – said Mr. Sahakyan to Aravot.am.” Let’s immediately note as to what we are going to say on Monday during interrogation. “As per Article 5 of the law on “Mass media”, “1. The persons implementing media activity and the journalists shall not be obliged to disclose their sources of information, with the exception of the cases set forth in the 2nd part of this Article. 2. The implementer of media activity or a journalist can be obliged to disclose the source of information by the court decision, in the course of a criminal proceeding with the aim of revealing heavy or most heavy crimes, if societal interest in law enforcement overweighs the societal interest in protecting the sources of information, and all other means to protect public interest are exhausted. In such cases, at the petition of the journalist, the court proceedings can be held in camera.” We do not intend to disclose the source of information, and the investigative body can try to implement it by court order, if the information about the availability of drugs in the blood is a heavy or most heavy crime.
