The important context of Nikol Pashinyan’s hasty statement about the murder of the head of the Parakar community appears to have been overlooked. Lawyer Raffi Aslanyan wrote about this on his Facebook page.
He noted, in particular: “He says that the question of what preventive measures should have been taken to prevent the series of violent acts in Parakar and why they weren’t taken must be subject to a detailed analysis.”
In other words, as in other cases of interest to him—the Surmalu explosion, the fire at the Azat barracks, etc.—Pashinyan is once again pushing his preferred version and the scope of the preliminary investigation on law enforcement agencies just hours after the incident, hinting that yesterday’s murder was committed out of revenge and is connected to the murder committed in the courtyard of a KP employee in the same community on February 5 of this year.
Based on the above, there is reasonable suspicion that this murder case will suffer the same fate as the other aforementioned crimes…”
On September 23, at 11:52 PM, police received a report of a shooting on the Yerevan Highway in the village of Merdzavan in the Armavir Region, resulting in two deaths and one injury. One of the victims was the head of the community, Volodya Grigoryan.
The second victim was identified as police officer Karen Abrahamyan, an employee of the Ararat Criminal Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was off-duty at the time of the murder; he is a friend of Volodya Grigoryan.
The incident occurred directly in front of Volodya Grigoryan’s home. Another person, Artsrun Galstyan, was injured in the shooting.
Video cameras were found at the scene of the murder, which, according to Sargsyan, were seized.
A criminal case has been opened into the incident. The Vagharshapat Investigative Department of the Armavir Regional Investigative Department has opened a criminal case under Part 1 (2 counts) of Article 155 (murder), Part 1 of Articles 44-155 (attempted murder), and Part 1 of Article 335 (illegal trafficking of firearms, their main parts, ammunition, and other materials, devices, and objects) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia. Forensic examinations have been ordered during the preliminary investigation. Evidentiary and procedural actions are underway.
As a reminder, on March 30 of this year, Grigoryan, as an opposition candidate in the local government elections in Parakar, won a landslide victory over the ruling Civil Contract Party.