They can discuss me at all hearings, but I cannot discuss you. What unequal conditions? During the court hearing, in his closing speech, addressing the judge, Archbishop Michael of the Shirak Diocese said:
“You consider me a criminal. Don’t I have the right to give you a fitting answer? You hold the hammer in your hands, and the hammer is only my word. You portray me as a criminal, but I have no right to say that you are the criminal?” Archbishop Michael said.
It should be noted that Judge Armine Meliksetyan reprimanded the archbishop: “Be respectful of the court and do not use offensive language.”
In his speech, the archbishop noted that his late brothers and his late children would not have forgiven him if he had not been accused. “My brothers who died in 1992-1994 wouldn’t have allowed me to do otherwise; our children who died in 2020 wouldn’t have allowed me to be anywhere else. I have to be where I am now. Since this government has nullified the achievements of my brothers, nullified the achievements of 5,000 18-year-olds in 2020, my children, I can’t be anywhere else. I am in the most advantageous place,” he said.
The archbishop noted that he wouldn’t want to be in the place of the security guards who seem to be talking to the wall.
“I wouldn’t want to be in the place of the people’s benefactors who sit and complain about this injustice, and I especially wouldn’t want to be in the place of the accusers.” God forbid, I would not allow this to happen. I have no desire to be in a courtroom. The best place for me is the prosecutor’s chair, and I am happy to be in this chair, under these conditions,” he said.