SEFILIAN AND MALKHASSIAN STILL EXHIBIT “STRANGE” BEHAVIOUR
Support A1+!Recently the commission of Vardashen Penitentiary which approves early or conditional release from prison has held a meeting to discuss the cases of Zhirair Sefilian and Vardan Malkhassian. The commission concluded that they had not been corrected yet and consequently put off the hearing of the cases.
During the same meeting the penitentiary leadership launched the cases of about 3 offenders who had committed different crimes. By the way, when transferring from the penitentiary of Yerevan Center to Vardashen Zhirair Sefilian received an unlawful reprimand for a preposterous reason, and was deprived of the right to conditional release for 6 months. Now this term has expired, and Zhirair Sefilian’s early release should have been discussed at least formally. Why formally? Even if his release were approved, it would be brought into being only two weeks before the end of his imprisonment. But perhaps those two weeks are also essential to the regime. Meanwhile, the search in Vardan Malkhassian’s cell six months ago for reprimanding him was futile, and so far he has not been reprimanded. All these months he has been deprived of the right to early conditional release for different unlawful reasons, such as “time is needed to study Malkhassian’s behaviour.” It is due to mention that Malkhassian has already served two thirds of his sentence, which is enough time to study the behavior of any person. In any case, the early conditional release of Zhirair Sefilian will not be discussed any more because his sentence ends June 9. Meanwhile, for 7 more months the commissions of the penitentiaries will have to make preposterous decisions, asserting that “there are no political prisoners in Armenia”, runs the statement of the committee for support of Zhirair Sefilian and Vardan Malkhassian released on May 2.
