Gevorg Alivoryan, 28, is still detained at an investigatory isolation ward in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on stabbing charges, but the stabbing victim, Azerbaijani Farid Nahmetov, 22, insists that the police have mistaken.   

After the football match between Russia and Armenia in Saint Petersburg on June 4, an argument had started in an Azerbaijani-owned café, and Armenians were also involved in the dispute. The arguing parties then left the café and three of them surrounded Farid Nahmetov and stabbed him.  

Four days later, the police burst into the Alivoryan brothers’ apartment, and, according to the police, Gevorg Alivoryan was the one who stabbed Nahmetov. As stated in Alivoryans’ complaint, they were tortured and sexually threatened by the police, and subsequently they signed some papers, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily of Russia writes.     

The Azerbaijani stabbing victim did not recognize Gevorg’s face, and he insists that the police have mistaken. The court, however, extended Alivoryan’s detention. According to the police, Alivoryan, who is unregistered and unemployed in Russia, is guilty and he could flee the country. This criminal scandal is now becoming an international one, as the national-cultural autonomy and Armenia’s consul have become interested in the fate of their compatriot.