YEREVAN. – A criminal case should be brought likewise against former Governor Suren Khachatryan of Armenia’s Syunik Region.
Opposition Heritage Party MP Zaruhi Postanjyan stated the aforesaid during a press conference on Friday. She recalled that Khachatryan had said if he had not been asleep during the incident, he would have fired twenty bullets to their forehead, and he also had threatened to break the head of Heritage’s chairman, ex-presidential candidate, former FM Raffi Hovannisian.
“Given this man’s past, that he has committed violent crimes and made calls for violence, [and] also the ammunition that was found in his house, I believe charges should have been laid against him,” the MP said.
In Postanjyan’s words, not being an accused and being free, Khachatryan impedes the investigation.
“He is so dangerous that may also carry out other dangerous acts. The sooner that man is taken into custody the people will be freed that much more from harassment of dangerous people,” Zaruhi Postanjyan noted. She added that this may become a preventive measure against similar such officials.
As Armenian News-NEWS.am informed earlier, shots were fired nearby Syunik Regional Governor Suren Khachatryan’s home in Goris city, on June 2 at around 12:10am, as a result of which one person was killed and two others sustained gunshot wounds and were taken to Goris hospital. The person who died was Avo Budaghyan, the former Goris mayoral candidate. The wounded are Budaghyan’s brother Artak, and Nikolay Abrahamyan, a relative and bodyguard of Khachatryan. Subsequently, the wounded were transferred to capital city Yerevan.
A criminal case is launched on charges of murder and illegal carrying, possession, and use of arms and ammunition, and the Military Prosecutor’s Office is conducting the investigation.
Two people are arrested in connection with this incident. One of them is the Syunik regional governor’s son, Tigran Khachatryan, 19, and the other is the governor’s bodyguard, Zarzand Nikoghosyan.
Pursuant to his petition, Suren Khachatryan on Thursday was relieved of his duties as Governor of Syunik Region.
Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am
