YEREVAN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th December, 2019) Armen Tavadyan, the owner of Armenia's TV5 channel, which is considered to have opposition leanings, was detained in Yerevan on Tuesday over subornation of perjury, Marina Ogadjanyan, the spokeswoman for the Armenian Special Investigation Service told Sputnik.
According to the police's press service, Tavadyan, among other supporters of arrested ex-Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, bribed the victims and witnesses in Kocharyan's case to withdraw their statements against the defendant. One such supporter, Varuzhan Mkrtchyan, was charged with the same crime.
"Mkrtchyan is charged under the article 'subornation of perjury committed by an organized group.' On suspicion of committing a crime under the same article, Armen Tavadyan has been detained," Ogadjanyan said.
In May, Tavadyan was charged with hooliganism, and the use of weapons or objects used as weapons. One of Kocharyan's opponents, activist Vardges Gaspari, said that on May 13, supporters of the former president attacked him in the lobby of the courthouse during a protest rally and hit him in the face with a bottle. On the same day, the alleged participants of the incident, including Tavadyan, were taken to the police department, but were soon released.
In July 2018, the Special Investigation Service charged Kocharyan with undermining constitutional order as a part of a criminal case into the dispersal of rallies that took place on March 1, 2008. The former president is also accused of receiving large bribes. Kocharyan denies any wrongdoing and considers the accusations as political persecution.
