One of the three defendants, accused of being recruited by the Azerbaijani intelligence services, has been acquitted, two of them being convicted. The verdict was brought in on Wednesday in the Court of General Jurisdiction of of Yerevan’s Kentron and Nork Marash Administrative Districts.  

Siranush Harutyunyan, the attorney of Rafik Papoyan, told Armenian News – NEWS.am that Rafik Papoyan and Karine Gumashyan are convicted under Article 299.1 (high treason) of the Armenia Criminal Code, being sentenced to 14 and 12 years in prison respectively. Rafik Papoyan’s son, Sergey Papoyan, who was also charged with high treason, has been acquitted and released.

As reported earlier, Rafik Papoyan was recruited in the service by an Azerbaijani intelligence service worker named Seyran and later carried out intelligence tasks. He specifically selected persons among the citizens of Armenia who had arrived in Turkey, who were of interest to the intelligence services of Azerbaijan, and got acquainted with them for the purpose of their further recruitment. Rafik’s son, Sergey Papoyan, was also later involved in the intelligence activity.

Upon the instruction of his father Rafik Papoyan, Sergey Papoyan met with an intelligence officer in Tbilisi and was recruited by the latter providing information which he possessed during his service as a spy in Karabakh’s Martuni region.  Paying $750, the aforementioned Seyran instructed Papoyan to get recruited as a contract soldier in Mataghis military unit and provide information about that unit via the Internet.

Karine Ghumashyan was recruited by another intelligence worker, a man who called himself Arman. Receiving remuneration in the amount of $1500, she was instructed not to call the man who called himself Arman and not to tell anyone about that acquaintance, observing the rules of confidentiality.