PROTECTION FROM “PROTECTION”?: LAW ON BODYGUARDS SHELVED, CRITICS SAY MPS FEAR IT STRIKES TO CLOSE TO HOME

Armenian lawmakers appeared reluctant to discuss a draft law on bodyguards’ activities during their autumn session as they left the crucial piece of legislation out of their big agenda last week (September 10-16). With a vote of 35 to 62 the deputies shelved the bill originally drafted by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and its former coalition partner Orinats Yerkir that had been adopted by the previous parliament in the first reading.
Hrayr Karapetyan, head of the ARF faction in parliament, says its wrong that the bill “On the Service of Bodyguards” that received 87 “for” votes in the first reading should be left out of the agenda.
“The authorized body and the government have presented a number of proposals for the second reading, most of which were acceptable for the authors. Cooperating with the government and the commission we can come to terms and return to the draft law, which has elicited a wide public response and is necessary for all of us,” Karapetyan said.
Deputy Parliament Speaker Vahan Hovannisyan, who is a senior member of the ARF, expressed his regret over the failure to include the bill on the agenda. He wondered if some of his colleagues feared problems as the proposed legislation stipulates that a bodyguard should not have a previous conviction, should not have used drugs, and so on.
“Go to Baghramyan Avenue and you will see what is happening there,” Hovhannisyan said. “We want this process to be regulated by law. Perhaps it is a difficult process, but we will re-submit the bill for discussion, and we urge the coalition to adopt the law, despite the fact that many colleagues from the coalition did not join us.”
Officially, there are some ten organizations of bodyguards registered in Armenia that provide training and issue relevant certificates to scores of bodyguards every year. There is a special bodyguard police service where entrepreneurs can officially hire bodyguards for a legally defined fee. Last year a senior police official said at least 36 local entrepreneurs had availed themselves of the service. Advocates of the legislation on bodyguards’ activities argue that the law will also help regulate the work of private bodyguards employed by state officials and businessmen whose number is not yet reflected -- and is difficult to determine -- in any official statistics.
The numbers are more accurately tallied, however, by watching the movement of known (and wannabe) oligarchs whose posse of bodyguards is considered a gauge of importance. Among them are former wrestlers, weightlifters, servicemen. And whether they are trained in protection appears less significant that whether their bulk and numbers strike the appropriately intimidating pose. Some carry handguns, usually tucked inside their considerable waistbands.
The authors of the bill believe the regulation of the sphere is long overdue and is of great public importance in today’s Armenian reality.
With the emergence of oligarchs and rich businessmen, hiring private bodyguards became a normal practice in Armenia. Meanwhile, most Armenians associate bodyguards with semi-criminal activities and picture them as “well-built men with shaven heads, thick necks and dumb looks”. Few in Armenia doubt that bodyguards will normally get away with their unruly behavior and actions bordering on crime.
Orinats Yerkir party member Mher Shahgeldyan, who is a co-author of the bill, thinks the adoption of the law has become a public demand in Armenia today.
“Rumbles and settling scores have become phenomena in the life of our society. The sphere itself does exist and its legal and legislative regulation has become a matter of urgency,” he explains.
Incidents involving bodyguards are not rare in Armenia. Four such clashes exposed to public view happened only during August as bodyguards of several oligarchs and influential politicians were embroiled in public displays of violence.
The latest in the series of scandals involving bodyguards happened in late August as men reportedly recognized as bodyguards of tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan and senior member of the Republican Party and businessman Ashot Aghababyan staged a mass brawl in broad daylight in one of the cafés in downtown Yerevan, just in front of the building that houses the country’s several leading news agencies, including state-run Armenpress.
Several Armenian newspapers reported that the fight at the Triumph café was stopped only due to the personal intervention by the chief of the president’s security service. Apparently frightened eyewitnesses and café staff either refused to talk to the media or denied any involvement of “well-built men” in the fight. Police later reported that the violence had involved several teenagers with no relation to the oligarchs.
Earlier, an incident involving two men allegedly working for Tsarukyan’s security all but resulted in a diplomatic row as a young Russian officer stationed in Armenia was killed in a late-night incident and his four travel companions escaped alive after being beaten and fired upon.
In mid-August, “Haykakan Zhamanak” reported two incidents also involving security officials working for pro-establishment politicians. One occurred in Yerevan and involved the bodyguards of Center Community prefect Gagik Beglaryan and MP Ashot Aghababyan who reportedly clashed near the Hrazdan stadium. The paper reported that although no firearms were used in that incident, several people on both sides were injured and several cars were damaged. Aghababyan’s nephew, MP Arman Sahakyan, later confirmed the information about a car accident near the stadium that night in which two vehicles belonging to the companies of Beglaryan and Aghababyan collided, with only minor injuries received by the people inside the cars as a result of that collision. But he bluntly denied any ensued fight.
The same paper reported another fistfight between bodyguards at around the same time near Lake Sevan, this time between the men of retired general Seyran Saroyan, who now serves as a parliament member, and his colleague elected to parliament on the Republican Party’s list Spartak Melikyan.
During last week’s press briefing Parliament Speaker Tigran Torosyan, of the Republican Party, was asked to comment on the recent violent clashes involving bodyguards of several members of parliament. In particular, he was asked if it was possible to take any measures to prevent such brawls.
Torosyan replied: “I think you remember well that after constitutional changes were effected, no law-enforcement functions are reserved to the parliament. Factions can express their positions especially after the investigations of those cases are over.”

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