Bagrat Galstanyan to remain under arrest for another 3 months

YEREVAN, August 21. /ARКА/. On Thursday, a court in Yerevan extended the pre-trial detention of Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian, who spearheaded an anti -government initiative known as Sacred Struggle, for an additional three months.

The ruling of the court is subject to appeal at the Criminal Court of Appeal within a period of ten days.

The case against Galstanyan is based on audio recordings of conversations between him and his associates, some of which were disclosed by investigators in late June. He faces allegations of conspiring to overthrow the government through a series of terrorist activities.

Defense lawyers have claimed that the authorities have manipulated the recordings and distorted their content, despite having been granted full access to them earlier this month.

Galstanyan and his supporters were detained on June 25 amid contentious actions by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan aimed at removing senior members of the Armenian Apostolic Church who opposed his concessions to Azerbaijan.

The following day, Pashinyan warned of forcibly removing Catholicos Karekin from his residence in Etchmiadzin if the church's supreme primate continued to ignore his demands for resignation.

Archbishop Mikael Ajapahian, another vocal critic of the prime minister, was arrested on June 27 and charged with inciting violent regime change, a charge that Ajapahian denies. A separate trial regarding his case began on August 15.-0-