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ARMENIA ARRESTS EX-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OVER ATTACK ON RIVAL
Global Post
March 5 2013
Armenia arrested on Tuesday a former presidential candidate over a
gun attack on one of his rivals in last month's leadership polls seen
as a crucial democratic test for the ex-Soviet state, officials said.
"Yerevan's city court has ruled to send the former presidential
candidate Vardan Sedrakyan to two-month pre-trial detention," the
spokeswoman for Armenia's prosecutor-general, Sona Tuzyan, told AFP.
The arrest has been requested by Armenia's security service as part
of the investigation into the attack against presidential candidate
Paruyr Hayrikyan, she said.
Armenia's incumbent President Serzh Sarkisian celebrated a crushing
victory in February 18 elections that were undermined by the mysterious
attempt to assassinate Hayrikyan, a Soviet-era dissident.
Hayrikyan, who heads the Union for National Self-Determination, was
shot in the upper chest in central Yerevan as he was heading home on
January 31.
Doubts over whether the vote would take place as scheduled were raised
when Hayrikyan asked authorities to postpone the poll by two weeks
as Armenian law allows if a candidate is deemed to have suffered an
insurmountable obstacle.
But he later withdrew his demand.
On February 8 Armenia's security service arrested two men who pleaded
guilty of the attack on the 63-year-old veteran politician.
Observers from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly said the election was
an improvement on past polls but lacked real competition after two
leading candidates pulled out late last year.
Neither Hayrikyan nor Sedrakyan -- an obscure figure with no political
background -- managed double-digit scores.
mkh-im/jmm
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130305/armenia-arrests-ex-presidential-candidate-over-attack-rival
Global Post
March 5 2013
Armenia arrested on Tuesday a former presidential candidate over a
gun attack on one of his rivals in last month's leadership polls seen
as a crucial democratic test for the ex-Soviet state, officials said.
"Yerevan's city court has ruled to send the former presidential
candidate Vardan Sedrakyan to two-month pre-trial detention," the
spokeswoman for Armenia's prosecutor-general, Sona Tuzyan, told AFP.
The arrest has been requested by Armenia's security service as part
of the investigation into the attack against presidential candidate
Paruyr Hayrikyan, she said.
Armenia's incumbent President Serzh Sarkisian celebrated a crushing
victory in February 18 elections that were undermined by the mysterious
attempt to assassinate Hayrikyan, a Soviet-era dissident.
Hayrikyan, who heads the Union for National Self-Determination, was
shot in the upper chest in central Yerevan as he was heading home on
January 31.
Doubts over whether the vote would take place as scheduled were raised
when Hayrikyan asked authorities to postpone the poll by two weeks
as Armenian law allows if a candidate is deemed to have suffered an
insurmountable obstacle.
But he later withdrew his demand.
On February 8 Armenia's security service arrested two men who pleaded
guilty of the attack on the 63-year-old veteran politician.
Observers from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly said the election was
an improvement on past polls but lacked real competition after two
leading candidates pulled out late last year.
Neither Hayrikyan nor Sedrakyan -- an obscure figure with no political
background -- managed double-digit scores.
mkh-im/jmm
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130305/armenia-arrests-ex-presidential-candidate-over-attack-rival