Questions linger regarding Georgian-Armenians accused of spying for Russia

Defendants pled guilty are out on bail

Trial will take place in the near future

by Tatul Hakobyan

Published: Saturday March 21, 2009

Yerevan - Two Armenian citizens of Georgia accused of forming an illegal armed group and spying are out on bail of 2,000 laris (about $1,176) each. The criminal case filed against them is pending and a trial will take place in the coming months. The two Armenians, Grigor Minasian, a youth center director, and Sarkis Hakobjanian, director of the Charles Aznavour Charitable Union, were arrested on January 22 and released on March 6 in the town of Akhaltsikhe, the regional center of Georgia's Samtskhe-Javakheti province.

Both men, who are very active in the Armenian community, are refusing to talk to the media. "I do not have the right to talk. My case has not been closed yet," Mr. Minasian said briefly to the Armenian Reporter.

Earlier, during a telephone conversation with Armenian Public Radio, Mr. Minasian had said, "I can only say that I have accepted those accusations, which I have been charged with, by stating that I have done them without realizing that I have and without having any bad intentions toward Georgia and Armenia. I have not had the intention to harm my fatherland, Georgia. I am not filled with animosity toward Georgia.

"Armenia and Georgia are two parts of my heart and my activities were not intentionally aimed against their interests. However, the data of the investigation has shown that I have committed a crime," added Mr. Minasian, stressing that on his release he signed a document agreeing not to give any interviews and divulge details of the case.

The lawyer for the two arrested ethnic Armenians, Nino Andriashvili, told IWPR they were accused of cooperating with a Belarus-based organization allegedly set up by Russia's Federal Security Service, FSB, called the Association for Legal Assistance to the Population, ALAP.

Ms. Andriashvili said the two men had admitted being involved in espionage, but denied a secondary charge of planning to create a private army. She said the investigators had a video of the two men discussing the creation of such an army with the local head of ALAP, but that they had not thought he was being serious.

"Minasian and Hakobjanian came to see him in his office, and they were having a drink. And this person started to say things like ‘We are really cool, we will make a good army, we will train up some lads.' And they started to agree with him," she said, adding that the unnamed man from ALAP suggested funding three projects, including a sports hall for around $100,000.

In an another interview, Ms. Andriashvili told EurasiaNet, "In part, they admitted that they are spies, but they did not admit that they were preparing to form a [militia group]," adding that the two men told her they were under "pressure" when they made their admissions of guilt.

ALAP seems to be based in Minsk, and its website says the organization is dedicated to promoting "peace, education and civil society development," but has no information on the source of its funding. Several Samtskhe-Javakheti NGOs told IWPR that the organization appeared several months ago. In December last year, a representative gave questionnaires to representatives of NGOs in the region. They received between $300 and $800 if they filled them in - a lot of money in the region.

Mr. Minasian's and Mr. Hakobjanian's completed questionnaires were presented as proof of their alleged espionage, although their lawyer said none of the information they provided was a state secret. IWPR saw one of the questionnaires and it included 20 questions related to the region, some of which were potentially sensitive. One question concerned the security around a pipeline being built. Other NGOs in the region also filled in the forms, though they realized the questions were unusual.

The ALAP office in central Tbilisi closed a month ago. The telephones were disconnected, and they have not replied to emails. Its website is not functioning and there is no listing for an office in Georgia.

According to EurasiaNet, an online directory of Belorussian civil rights organizations identifies ALAP as active in human rights issues, and the recipient of a 1999 award from the New York-based International League for Human Rights. ALAP, which at the time was headed by Oleg Volchek, a former state prosecutor-turned-reformer, opened a human rights protection center in 2001 in Minsk. In its 2004 report on human rights conditions in Belarus, the U.S. State Department noted that Volchek suffered a severe beating in September 2003 at the hands of an unidentified assailant. The attack came just a few weeks after a Belorussian court "shut down" the association.

In an interview with the Armenian Reporter, one of the leaders of an NGO in Georgia, who knows Samtskhe-Javakhk very well, said that ALAP is a fake organization.

"Supposedly it is a Belorussian organization which has distributed money here. They have collected completed questionnaires in return for $300 from NGOs in that region, which are not very loyal toward Georgia. The head of that organization was deported by Lukashenko [the president of Belarus] and lives in a European country. He has no idea that his organization is active in Georgia. Another supposition is that the organization, ALAP, is headed by Georgian special services in order to check the loyalty of certain Armenian circles toward Georgia. The power bodies have their wiretaps; all of the NGOs here are bugged, especially the ethnic minorities," said our interlocutor whose name we are withholding for reasons of security.

He also insisted that during the August war, Grigor Minasian and Sarkis Hakobjanian publicly spoke in Russia's favor, which was at war with Georgia. Our source did not rule out the possibility that these two Armenians were arrested because of this.

Veronika Hambarian, who now heads the youth center after Mr. Minassian's arrest, learned about the questionnaire from the Armenian Reporter. "It is the first time I have heard about it," she said, surprised.

In an interview with the Reporter, Arthur Paspandian, a reporter with the Russian-language Kavkazski Aktsent paper published in Tbilisi, said that it was the first time he had heard about that questionnaire. "If such a questionnaire had been distributed to the NGOs of Akhaltsikhe, I would have heard about it," he said.

In Armenian circles, there is an opinion that the Armenians of Javakhk, especially the active Armenians, are being pursued for their activities aimed at preserving Armenian identity. The organization that was headed by Minasian was one of the most active Armenian NGOs in Akhaltsikhe.

"Our organization was established in September 2006 and it deals with educational-cultural issues. Our aim is to preserve the Armenians as Armenian in Akhaltsikhe. We organize Armenian language lessons for those Armenians who attend Russian schools. We deal with Armenian identity preservation issues," said Ms. Hambarian.

Arnold Stepanian is the head of the Multination Georgia NGO. He says that there is no fire without smoke. "Minasian and Hakobjanian were very active in Akhaltsikhe. Their arrest means that this is a warning for the rest of the Armenians. On the other hand, those two individuals were close to the Revolutionary party. Those people in Georgia who are close to Dashnaktsutiun are not very loyal to the Georgian state," said Mr. Stepanian.

Harout Hovhannisian, an Armenian member of the Georgian parliament elected from Akhalkalak, does not agree that Mr. Minasian and Mr. Hakobjanian are being pursued on ethnic grounds. "I can say that they were not arrested on ethnic grounds. The two Armenians of Akhaltsikhe have pleaded guilty, which means they have committed a crime. Isn't that true?" said the member of the parliament, discounting the likelihood that the plea deal was made under pressure.

Engaged Armenians in Tbilisi and Javakhk believe that at the end of the trial, the verdict that will be handed down for the two accused Armenians will be relatively mild and then the whole issue will be forgotten.