Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Defying Armenian Drug Lord May Foster Asylum

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Defying Armenian Drug Lord May Foster Asylum

    Courthouse News Service
    July 1 2011


    Defying Armenian Drug Lord May Foster Asylum
    By TIM HULL

    (CN) - Immigration officials should consider granting the asylum
    petition of an Armenian woman fighting to bring down a violent,
    politically connected drug dealer in her native land, the 9th Circuit
    ruled.

    Nune Antonyan had to flee Armenia after she testified against
    Hovhannesyan Andranik, an alleged drug dealer with corrupt friends in
    the highest levels of government. Antonyan and her husband had
    received threats and endured "physical beatings, warnings to remain
    silent, and death threats from Andranik and his henchmen, as well as
    threats and intransigence from the government," according to a ruling
    published Wednesday.

    Antonyan's troubles began when she upbraided Andranik, not
    knowing who he was, for cursing at her neighbor. After Andranik told
    her to mind her own business, Antonyan called the police, but they
    refused to follow up. Antonyan soon found out that Andranik was a
    major drug dealer who worked as an informant for the police, and that
    he did not appreciate her complaints. He warned her off, pushing her
    to the ground and kicking her. Later, he beat up her husband in the
    couple's apartment.

    Undeterred, Antonyan took her complaints to a national security
    investigator, and eventually secured Andranik's arrest with a promise
    to testify against him. She did so, but he was soon released by his
    friends in the government and resumed his threats, the ruling states.

    Fearing for her life, Antonyan fled to the United States on a
    visitor visa, leaving her husband and children behind in Armenia.

    After she overstayed her visa, she requested asylum, claiming
    that if she were sent back to Armenia she would not be protected from
    Andranik's wrath. While an immigration judge found Antonyan's story
    credible, he denied her petition, and the Board of Immigration Appeals
    did the same. The board ruled that she had failed to show that her
    whistle-blowing activities were linked to politics, finding instead
    that she merely had a personal dispute with a criminal and a few
    corrupt police officials.

    The San Francisco-based federal appeals panel reversed that
    finding on Wednesday, ruling that Antonyan's petition should get
    another look.

    "In pursuing Andranik's prosecution, Antonyan sought more than
    an end to his drug-dealing and violence in her community; she also
    hoped to expose his crooked ties to law enforcement agencies who
    refused to protect the citizenry," Judge Sidney Thomas wrote for the
    unanimous three-judge panel. "The record belies the government's
    suggestion that Antonyan aimed at only a private criminal or a few
    public officials. To be sure, when she first contacted police,
    Antonyan did not know of Andranik's 'very influential protectors.'
    That her initial reports stemmed from a 'personal dispute' does not
    render her later acts any less 'political,' however."

    Thomas added that Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) had "failed
    to credit evidence that [Andranik's] motives were not exclusively
    'personal.'"

    "While the BIA correctly found that 'revenge' motivated
    Andranik, significant credible evidence establishes that he also acted
    because Antyonyan sought to expose his corrupt relationships to the
    government," Thomas wrote. "Andranik's bribes, drug business, and work
    as an informant made him 'valuable' to the police and prosecutors, and
    won him protection from high-ranking officials."

    http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/07/01/37852.htm

Working...
X