On April 30 Argishti Kivirian, Coordinator of Armenia Today news agency, called a press conference at which he announced that the investigation of the assault made on him last year was unfruitful. As it has been reported, on April 30, 2009 at about 5.00, strangers with bats attacked Argishti Kivirian on the way home from his office which is located in the next entrance. In a grave condition, with multiple injuries, also on his head, Argishti Kivirian was taken to hospital. Right after the incident the police instituted criminal proceedings on Article 117 of the RA Criminal Code — “Intentional non-grave health injuries”, which was strongly criticized by lawyers, human rights organizations. Particularly, in their opinion, numerous blows requiring a hospitalization and other circumstances of the incident cannot be just qualified as “non-grave health injuries”. Moreover, on the photos made by free lance journalist Gagik Shamshian at the site of the attack, a bloody bat and gun shells could be seen. The photos were placed on Internet sites on the very day of the incident (later they were published by the press), but the RA Police report did not say anything about the detection of shells. Later, the case was transmitted to the Investigative Department of the RA National Security Service, where it was requalified to Article 34-104 of the RA Criminal Code, i.e., murder attempt. On July 11, 2009 the court of general jurisdiction of Kentron and Nork-Marash communities of Yerevan selected arrest as preventive punishment in regard to two persons, accused for the murder attempt (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, July 10-16, 2009).
At the meeting with the journalists Argishti Kivirian expressed his own version noting that the assault on him could have been ordered by Samvel Petrosian, Head of the Police of Akhalkalaki (the region of Armenian populated Samtskhe-Javakheti in Georgia). According to the information present on the website of Armenia Today on April 30, 2010, the investigation conducted by the journalist gave ground for such an allegation. In the opinion of Kivirian, the reason of the assault could have been the extremely critical articles about the Head of the Akhalkalaki Police. The Coordinator of Armenia Today also noted that the two men arrested on charges of murder attempt in July 2009 were released on March 8, 2010. According to Kivirian, not long before the assault, those two had met with the Head of the Akhalkalaki Police, moreover, one of them is Samvel Petrosian’s relative. “Commenting upon the investigation as a whole, Kivirian stressed that the case will be procrastinated and suppressed after a while”, the information of Armenia Today emphasizes in particular.
