YEREVAN. – The prosecutor's office has denied the petition to release Armen Tavadyan, the owner of 5th Channel television of Armenia, on a personal guarantee. Arevik Khachatryan, Head of the Public Relations Division of the Prosecutor General's Office, informed this.
"The petition was denied because at the present stage of the investigation, any other preventive measures, including the personal guarantee, is not capable of preventing the accused's unlawful conduct and neutralizing the grounds recorded by the court's ruling to select arrest as a precautionary measure for Tavadyan,” Khachatryan said. "The grounds and necessity for commuting the selected precautionary measure of arrest with a personal guarantee are absent."
Armen Tavadyan has been arrested along the lines of the criminal case on Varuzhan Mkrtchyan, a supporter of Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan, who is believed to have proposed a victim of the March 1, 2008 case to take back testimony. Tavadyan was arrested on suspicion under the Criminal Code article on false testimony, and bribery or coercion to give a false conclusion or incorrect translation.