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“The ruling of the Criminal Court of Appeals made it clear that the charges levelled against me and my detention were fully illegal and groundless," Fifth Channel owner Armen Tavadyan told reporters on Monday.
Judge Alexander Azaryan of the appellate court ruled to release the TV station owner from pre-trial detention a few days ago.

The Special Investigative Service (SIS) detained Tavadyan on 24 December 2019 on suspicion of seeking false testimony in favor of Armenia’s jailed former President Robert Kocharyan.

The Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction upheld the SIS petition to remand Tavadyan into custody for two months on 26 December, a ruling appealed by his lawyers to the higher court.

Tavadyan believes the criminal prosecution against him is aimed at exerting pressure on mass media.

“This is a pressure on freedom of speech,” he said.

His lawyer Hovhannes Khudoyan said that while talking about the criminal case they have repeatedly stressed that it has numerous shortcomings and each of them can serve as a sufficient ground to drop criminal charges against his client.

“We have always argued that there are no grounds for prosecution or detention at all. It became more interesting when we got acquainted with the materials of the case and found out what videos police edited to publish its own version. We got to know the full content, as a result we realized that those videos prove quite the opposite, which the police tried to present differently through a professional but unscrupulous editing,” the lawyer explained.

Khudoyan expressed hope that they will have an opportunity to address that issue and make that information fully accessible during the upcoming open court hearings.