Verdict: fake news

On June 20, the day of the extraordinary elections to the National Assembly, one of the candidates, Arman Babajanyan’s car was shot at. A few hours after the incident, word spread on the Internet that according to the Shirinyan-Babajanyan bloc, the shooter was a member of their bloc.

This information was not substantiated, and Arman Babajanyan refuted the assertion of making any such statement.

Several social media pages and websites reported that the Shirinyan-Babajanyan bloc had made an announcement that the identity of the person who shot at Arman Babajanyan’s car had been discovered.

“The ‘Shirinyan-Babajanyan’ bloc reported that the shooter had been discovered by law enforcement and that he was a member of the Shirinyan-Babajanyan bloc, who wanted to draw additional attention to the bloc by shooting at a parked empty car,” Mediaport Telegram wrote.

Media.am and Fact-check.ge could not find such an announcement by the bloc. We contacted Arman Babajanyan, who said that the bloc had not made any such statement.

Moreover, Babajanyan said that such allegations make a false letter on his behalf, “There is no such thing, I have not sent a message to anyone by letter. It is a message prepared by very well-known circles and sent to the representatives of the press and mass media, which has nothing to do with reality,” Babajanyan said.

The letter mentioned by Babajanyan had been quoted, for example, by the armlur.am website, noting that the candidate denied the authenticity of that letter.

Thus, the news that the Shirinyan-Babajanyan bloc stated that the shooter of Arman Babajanyan’s car was a member of their bloc is false․ The alliance did not make such a statement.

Karine Ghazaryan

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