YEREVAN, DECEMBER 1, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA Appeal Court of Criminal and Military Cases on November 30 finished the examination of the case of Arman Babajanian, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Zhamanak Yerevan", charged with evasion of military service by forging his documents. The court heard the petitions of the sides. The appeal court rejected the defence's petition to attach to the case the receipt about payment of 1 million drams (about 2.6 million dollars) to end the criminal prosecution for evading military service. According to the defence, on October 16 an application was submitted to the respective interdepartmental commission to stop the criminal prosecution of Arman Babajanian. Under the law, a decision on the application shall be made within a month, and a two month-period is envisaged for collecting additional information for the case examination, and the applicant shall be informed in this case, which was not done. So, according to the defence, the application must be considered as granted. However, the prosecution said that the sum should have been paid only in case of an official positive decision of the commission. The court supported this point of view. Then the court disputes started. The prosecutor Zhanna Kotikian contended that the first instance court's sentence on acquittal of A. Babajanian charged with document forgery should be reversed. The defence requested time to prepare its speech. The court sitting was postponed until December 11.

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