June 19, 2013

Armenia holds 2 in attack on presidential hopeful

BY: AP Staff Writer FEBRUARY 8, 2013 | MODIFIED: FEBRUARY 8, 2013 AT 12:02 PM
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< p>YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia's National Security Agency has arrested it has arrested two suspects in the shooting of a presidential candidate, it announced Friday.

Paruir Airikian, one of eight candidates in the Feb. 18 election, was shot and wounded by an unidentified assailant near his home in the Armenian capital a week ago.

The agency said the suspects arrested Thursday confessed to participating in the attack. Investigators are still looking into motives behind the shooting, it said, but gave no further details.

The attack on Airikian has thrown the election campaign into disarray, raising the possibility that the vote could be postponed.

Armenia's constitution calls for a presidential election to be postponed for 15 days if a candidate cannot take part due to circumstances beyond his control.

Airikian's lawyer said this week that the candidate would not seek such a postponement, but Airikian said Friday he intended to ask the constitutional court to push back the date by two weeks.

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