15:39, 23 April 2004

Outstanding politician savagely beaten in Yerevan

Ashot Manucharian, the outstanding Armenian politician and member of the political council of the Armenian Union of Socialist Forces and Intellectuals, was savagely beaten by three unknown people near the office of the Forum of Intellectuals Council of Elders on April 22. Manucharian was taken to the Nor-Nork emergency hospital of Yerevan with traumas and massive blood loss. Doctors say his state is moderately serious now.

Ashot Manucharian was a member of the Karabakh committee, which led the national movement in 1988. In 1988-1989, he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. He was arrested by Soviet authorities by political reasons along with other members of the Karabakh committee in January 1989 and spent several months in the Butyrskaya prison. Manucharian headed the Armenian foreign ministry in 1991, and was the Armenian president's chief national security advisor from 1991 to 1993. For the last two years, Ashot Manucharian has not been engaged in public politics and has not come out in the press.

Author: Ashot Ter-Grigorian, CK correspondent

Source: Caucasian Knot