Touching upon the incident, the famous Russian “Komsomolskaya Pravda” newspaper writes: “After the Armenia-Russia football match that took place in St. Petersburg on June 4, visitors flooded the Azerbaijanis’ “Natali” Cafe. There were also a lot of Armenians there. The Armenians and the Azerbaijani got into a dispute after one of them looked at the other “strangely”. They went out to the street. Three men surrounded 22-year old Azerbaijani Farid Nakhmetov, stabbed him with a knife and fled the scene, after which the Azerbaijani was transferred to the hospital where he received adequate treatment. A criminal case was instigated, and police arrested citizens of Armenia Garik and Gevorg Alivoryan. Four days after the incident, the police barged in the Alivoryan’s home and arrested the brothers. According to their information, the Azerbaijani was stabbed by 28-year old Gevorg. The brothers were arrested and taken to the police headquarters where they were interrogated without a translator all night long. The interrogation took place with brutality and threats of torture. After the assaults, the brothers were forced to sign some papers.”

“I only did it to stop the tortures,” Garik Alivoryan stated in his letter of protest against the police regarding the police officers crimes against him.

The periodical mentions that the defendant has demanded that the foreigners’ interrogation at night be considered illegitimate. However, one of the brothers has been arrested and sent to the Kresti isolation cell. The Armenians don’t deny the fact that they were at “Natali” Cafe, but claim that they had left before the dispute. According to “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, even though the Azerbaijani who was stabbed with a kniefe claims that Alivoryan has nothing to do with the beating, the prosecutor continues to demand that the citizen of Armenia be kept in prison.
“Nakhmetov left for Azerbaijan after he was stabbed. While police were searching for the Azerbaijani, Alivoryan’s time in prison was extended. When Nakhmetov returned to St. Petersburg, he was called to the police headquarters to recognize the culprit,” the newspaper writes.
“They showed me the passport of an Armenian and asked if he was the one. I said he wasn’t because I remember the faces of the three people who attacked me. They asked if I could indicate the person among the arrested and threatened that they would instigate a criminal case for false testimony,” Nakhmetov said.

The three Armenians faced Nakhmetov, and among them was the citizen whose passport the Azerbaijani had seen. “I didn’t see the people who had attacked me. I can’t accuse an innocent person,” Farid Nakhmetov told “Komsomolskaya Pravda”. “We need to wait for the results of the expert examination, verify the eyewitnesses and their identities and interrogate them as eyewitnesses, then solve the issue of alleging Alivoryan. This will take at least a month,” the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs representative said.

“My client is being kept in the isolation cell in order to find the eyewitnesses after four months. Excuse me, what were the investigations doing before this? Why wasn’t the identity of the so-called eyewitnesses checked at the scene of the crime? Why didn’t the investigators remember those eyewitnesses when Alivoryan’s time in prison was being extended? Don’t you think such an arrest is nothing more than an attempt to legitimize my client’s illegitimate imprisonment? After Nakhmetov’s words, the court no longer has grounds to extend Alivoryan’s time in prison. It is clear that my defendant has nothing to do with the crime,” lawyer Gabrielyan said.

“Komsomolskaya Pravda” writes that Alivoryan’s case is going from being a criminal scandal to an international one and informs that the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia has also interfered in the case.

As our fellow Armenians in St. Petersburg report, the police don’t wish to accept their mistakes and release innocent people. So, now the police are stating the version that despite everything, Alivoryan is guilty because he is living in Russia without registration. What happened goes to show that Russians continue the persecutions against foreigners, and one of the brilliant expressions of that is this “made up” case. Representatives of the Armenian community of St. Petersburg are sure that the incident will receive a juridical and political evaluation, and the person who didn’t commit any crime and became the Russian police’s hostage will be released.

Prepared by Levon Mutafyan