Court Decides to Keep Gerasim Vardanyan in Custody, Lawyer States

The Court of Appeals of the Republic of Armenia has ruled to keep Gerasim Vardanyan, a member of the ARF Bureau and a political prisoner, in custody. This was reported by Vardanyan's lawyer, Sose Chandoyan.

"I would like to inform you that the appeal for special review was considered in a written procedure and was entirely rejected. Judge Harutyunyan's decision is, in fact, evidence that keeping a person accused of a medium-heavy crime in custody is reasonable even in the absence of any substantiated suspicions. Moreover, it is even possible to leave the measure of restraint unchanged while ignoring all substantial and well-founded counterarguments presented in the appeal," stated the lawyer.

It is noteworthy that Gerasim Vardanyan was arrested on June 15 on suspicion of bribing residents to participate in protests.