Ara Saghatelyan handed two-month jail term in Yerevan

PanARMENIAN.Net - A court in Yerevan decided on Sunday, February 21 to incarcerate former head of the parliament staff Ara Saghatelyan for two months, Saghatelyan's lawyer Hakob Yenokyan has said.

Saghatelyan was among several people arrested for allegedly making posts from a fake account registered as "Gagik Soghomonyan". Even after their detention, however, more posts were made from the account.

Yenokyan revealed that the court recognized the decision to arrest Saghatelyan as illegal, but upheld the investigator's motion to incarcerate him. The lawyer said there was no factual evidence except for the fact that both Saghatelyan and the fake account had used the same IP address of a server called ProtonVPN.

"Turns out thousands of people can be accused of "managing" the fake account", Yenokyan added, according to Panorama.am.

Saghatelyan and political analyst Karen Bekaryan, who has been arrested, are charged under Article 226 (inciting national, racial or religious enmity) of Armenia's Criminal Code, 226.2 (public calls for violence, public justification or propaganda of violence), 307.4 (violation of the rules of publishing or disseminating information during martial law).