YEREVAN. – The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has given a special status to the petition on the case into Armenia’s opposition Founding Parliament initiative member Garo Yegnukian, who is charged with aiding the Sasna Tsrer armed group and is under detention for about a year, and the ECtHR will soon consider this petition.

Yegnukian’s legal defender, Tigran Hayrapetyan, informed about the aforementioned at a press conference on Monday.

“Garo Yegnukian is a political prisoner; the grounds for the charges brought against him are not clear till now,” Hayrapetyan said. “It means that he will remain in custody for six years and take part in the court sessions with which he has nothing to do. We had petitioned to the ECtHR and motioned that the matter of [his] detention be examined as soon as possible. We had received a response that the case was given a special status and they will examine it as soon as possible. We hope that it will be examined by the end of the year.”

Garo Yegnukian is both an Armenian and a US citizen.

The Sasna Tsrer armed group took over a police patrol regiment building in capital city Yerevan, held hostages, but later surrendered in July 2016.