Statement by ANC on pardon decree ENG 25.01.2009

25.01.2009

STATEMENT

The regime is deploying its entire arsenal of deceits and tricks, from ridiculous letters to blatant lies, in order to avoid fulfilling the requirement to immediately free political prisoners and, at the same time, to not have its voting right in the PACE suspended. Throughout the last month, the regime has done everything possible to extort pardon requests from political prisoners, so that it can present the "progress" to the PACE. After the failure of this dishonest and reprehensible attempt, the vote-rigger Serge Sargsyan is, at the last moment, making use of a new trick- blatant falsehood. On January 23 he issued a decree to pardon 16 persons. This decree is a collection of lies։

- None of the persons on the list has been sentenced for charges relating to "arms and weapons" as claimed in Serge Sargsyan's decree.
- Only two of the 16 are on the current list of political prisoners, which contains 60 people.
- At least 6 of the other 14 pardoned persons had received suspended sentences and thus they were already free.
- 13 of the mentioned 14 persons had been sentenced for theft.
- 2 of the mentioned 14 persons had admitted during their trials that they had been Serge Sargsyan's proxies during the election, one was a member of the "Prosperous Armenia" party, and 10 of the remaining 11 are persons unknown to us personally who also were members of the gangs sent by the regime to commit lootings and instigations, and did not have any association whatsoever with the demonstrators.

According to our information, another similar "pardon" decree will be issued before the PACE voting on suspending of voting rights of the Armenian delegation. The number of the "pardoned" will be announced in the PACE at the last moment, in order to influence the result of the voting. Serge Sargsyan is resorting to this trick at this given point in time solely for one purpose - so that PACE members and other officials will not have the time and the possibility to check the numbers and facts mentioned in the decrees.

24 June 2009