Stepan Safaryan: The Published Screenshots are Absolute Fakes

Member of the Public Council of Armenia and head of MAHI, Stepan Safaryan has filed a report regarding a crime and has addressed a call to the Director of the NSS, Artur Vanetsyan, and the Chief of Police, Valery Osipyan. He states: "A Facebook page, which no longer falls under the Armenian Criminal Code with several of its statuses, has recently published supposed screenshots of a 'conversation' between me and Vladimir Karapetyan, the press secretary of the Prime Minister of Armenia, claiming that these were extracted from my kidnapped phone.

As I have repeatedly written and stated since September 6 in my public speeches, for the kidnappers and their masterminds, it has been a matter of 'life and liberty' to discover my communications with the Prime Minister of Armenia, his representatives, or any other significant actor or individual, which could be used against me, the Prime Minister of Armenia, or the government, to showcase that the authorities of Armenia exert political pressure on the judicial system, more precisely, on the recently functioning Constitutional Court, one of whose components I am allegedly part of.

The signature was supposed to be the same as that of the NSS, the head of the Special Investigation Service, and the Prime Minister in the so-called 'wiretapping of telephone conversations' case, when the defense team of the accused Robert Kocharian in the March 1 case used all of this against the authorities for months, creating the illusion of 'telephone justice and orders' from the highest circles.

Unable to find anything in my kidnapped phone that would confirm their desirable 'connections,' they are now compelled to fabricate such 'correspondence,' which they have thrown into social networks for a clear purpose, allowing their affiliated media outlets to publish it on their pages.

I warn all websites and media outlets and users that on that page, I have announced about the false claims attributed to me, and spreading or republishing that content will lead to inevitable consequences. I inform the public that the published screenshots are absolute forgeries, there has been no such or any other communication, and what has occurred is a crime, defamation, and is directed against my social and political activities. I appeal to NSS Director A. Vanetsyan and Police Chief V. Osipyan to immediately identify the perpetrators of this forgery and determine their connection to the attack on me and the theft of my phone."