Reporter confesses he wrote fake article about terrorist threat

Avetis Babajanian - the reporter of ‘168 Hours’ Armenian newspaper who wrote an article about the threat of terrorist attacks on Russian facilities in Armenia ahead of the Sochi Olympics – has confessed that he made up that story.

On January 28-29 ‘168 Hours’ published an article about the threats of notorious terrorist Doku Umarov to thwart the Sochi Olympics. Citing sources ‘close to the authorities’, the article’s author Avetis Babajanian reported that terrorist attacks may be made on Russian facilities in Armenia during the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Avetis Babajanian was summoned to the National Security Service (NSS). According to the press service of the NSS, the journalist gave a written explanation saying that he used the phrase ‘sources close to the authorities’ as a journalistic trick to make the article more exciting. “I state with full responsibility that no source gave me any information or data concerning the article’s subject,” he said.

“It becomes evident from this explanation that Babajanian’s article is not only a fake, but also a result of the lack of responsibility. The reporter did not care about people who would read these ‘forecasts’, and neither did the newspaper’s editor,” the press service of NSS said.