March 1 events to be ‘reviewed entirely’

All the cases related to the 1 March 2008 post-election unrest in Armenia will be reviewed in an attempt to reveal those guilty of the ten killings, a chief investigations officer has said.

Speaking to RFE/RL, the head of the investigation group on March 1 events, Vahagn Harutyunyan said: “The examination of the March 1 events will be reviewed entirely.”

Harutyunyan said that the chief of the Special Investigations Service (SIS) convened a meeting on Thursday to decide what measure will be taken.

It comes after President Serzh Sargsyan said at a meeting with high-ranking law-enforcement officials on Wednesday that an additional probe into those events is needed and that their revelation is “important for him personally.”

“This is a very important issue for me personally, and my demand to you is to once again and more attentively examine even those circumstances that according to you cannot have anything new in them,” said Sargsyan.

Vahagn Harutyunyan further said that SIS decided to review all the evidence and testimonies obtained during the pre-examination stage, as well as reconsider all the hypotheses made.

Upon the directive of the SIS chief special attention will paid to the conclusions of the examinations of the previous testimonies by the witnesses and additional examinations will be launched as necessary, he added.

At least ten people were killed and dozens wounded during clashes between the riot police and opposition on 1, 2 March 2008 in Armenia, after the opposition took to the streets, claiming the presidential vote had been stolen. Dozens were arrested over the 1, 2 March 2008.

At least five remain in prison till now.

According to Vahagn Harutyunyan the SIS has already sent a notification to the operative services of the police, demanding to make the search efforts more active.

“That is to say, everything possible will be done to ensure the disclosure of those events,” said Harutyunyan.

Later in the day, the SIS released a statement in which it called on all citizens who may know anything that can shed more light on what happened during 1, 2 March 2008 unrest to share it with the SIS.

The agency said it will ensure citizens’ anonymity.