Court Revokes Travel Ban on Former Speaker Ara Babloyan, Attorney Aram Vardevanyan Says

Attorney Aram Vardevanyan announced on Facebook that the court has granted his request and revoked the travel ban imposed on former National Assembly Speaker Ara Babloyan.

In his post, he stated, "Dear colleagues,
I would like to inform you that today the latest hearing took place regarding the extremely unfounded and unlawful criminal case against former National Assembly Speaker Ara Babloyan. As a result, Judge Manukyan decided to accept my request and lift the travel ban imposed on Ara Babloyan.
During the session, I had submitted a request to completely revoke the travel ban, which required him to refrain from leaving the country. One of the grounds was that since 2020, Mr. Babloyan has received permission to leave Armenia four times on a short-term basis, and in three of those cases, he traveled and returned earlier than the designated timeframe. In one case, which was granted in March 2020, and was provided by the Prosecutor General’s Office, he did not utilize it due to the coronavirus pandemic during the pre-trial phase.

Despite these circumstances, the prosecution objected to the request as always, but the court truly administered justice. Law enforcement agencies must understand that a preventive measure cannot be applied “in all cases”; it must have real grounds, and if those grounds are absent, it should simply be lifted."