Nice try... On 16, PACE, Sargsyan, and hoodwinking

At first I was trying to figure out what type of deal, or deals, SS probably cut by releasing 16, but not the 7, and leaving still 60 or so in prison. Whas it a deal regarding Gharabagh, which is what I think is the West's leverage, or was it something else?
But then I saw the statement by the Congress about who those 16 released really are. Talk about really trying to pull one over. If the PACE folks buy the release of these 16 as a release of political prisoners and significant movement towards the principles set forth in their own documents, well then they've compromised not only their principles, but they've been duped, chumped, sucker-punched, bamboozled, hoodwinked, and hornswoggled.
And maybe they want it that way, which is just a whole new level of immorality.

Here's the statement (on a1plus and lragir):

“The regime uses its entire arsenal of fraud and tricks ranging from preposterous “circular” letters to shameless fraud to avoid the demand to release immediately the political prisoners and not to lose the right to vote to the PACE. For this purpose, over the past month it has been trying its hardest to extort letters of pardon from the political prisoners to present a figure of “progress” to the PACE. After the failure of this immoral and abject plan the usurper Serge Sargsyan again resorted to fraud. On January 23 he signed a decree on granting pardon to 16. The decree is a selection of fraud:

The charges of the people on this list have nothing to do with “weapon and ammunition”, although it is written so in the decree of Serge Sargsyan;

Of those 16 only 2 are included in the current list of 60 political prisoners;

Of the other “pardoned” 14 people at least 6 had been sentenced conditionally and were at large;

Of the 14 persons 13 were indicted of theft;

2 of 14 had confessed at the court that they were Serge Sargsyan’s proxies, one was a member of the Bargavach Hayastan Party, 10 of 11, whom we do not know, were members of a gang sent by the regime for looting and provocation, and had nothing to do with the demonstrations.

We have learned that by the moment of suspension of the regime’s right to vote in the PACE another list of people will be granted “pardon”. The number of the so-called “pardoned” will be published during the PACE session at the last moment to influence the voters. Serge Sargsyan has invented and fulfilled this trick in such a short period of time for one purpose – for the PACE delegates and officials to have no time and possibility to check the reality about the numbers tossed to them.”

(my bold)

HIMA has posted the statement in Armenian: ՀԱՅՏԱՐԱՐՈՒԹՅՈՒՆ