On December 19 the leader of the National Democratic Union Vazgen Manukian
released a statement announcing that he had addressed the RA Prosecutor’s Office
with a demand to institute criminal proceedings on charges of libel and insult
against “Haikakan Zhamanak” daily. On December 15, 2007 “Haikakan Zhamanak”
published an article “Mein Kampf” – “My Struggle” of Vazgen
Manukian”. In the beginning of the publication the newspaper stated that its
quotes fragments from a manuscript titled “How to Do”, authored by Vazgen Manukian
and discovered on September 27, 1996 during the search at the office of the
National Democratic Union. According to “Haikakan” Zhamanak”, the manuscript
narrates a series of steps necessary to implement for Vazgen Manukian to become
the President of Armenia. Vazgen Manukian announced he was not the author of
this manuscript. At the press-conference, held on December 18, the leader of
the National Democratic Union noted that during this pre-election campaign he
“would not want to have criminal proceedings instituted against any medium”,
and so he proposed the Chief Editor of “Haikakan Zhamanak” Nikol Pashinian to
send the manuscript for a handwriting comparison, entitling the newspaper head
to making his own decision of which experts to address, even to find them abroad.
However, Nikol Pashinian rejected this offer. Vazgen Manukian explained his
appeal to the Prosecutor’s Office by “the urgency of the issue as well as the
cynicism, with which the newspaper attempted to insult, libel” him. “I would
not have gone to the Prosecutor’s Office, had the Editor of the newspaper taken
my offer – to send the document for an expert assessment jointly with my representative”,
the statement of Vazgen Manukian stresses.
