YEREVAN. – Members of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia on Thursday observed a minute of silence to honor the victims of the terrorist act that was committed in Parliament, seventeen years ago on this day.

A group of criminals broke into the NA Sessions’ Hall, on October 27, 1999, and shot and killed several government and parliament members.    

This terrorist act took the lives of Prime Minister and Supreme Commander Vazgen Sargsyan, NA Speaker Karen Demirchyan, Vice-Speakers Yuri Bakhshyan and Ruben Miroyan, Operational Affairs Minister Leonard Petrosyan, and MPs Armenak Armenakyan, Henrik Abrahamyan, and Mikayel Kotanyan.

The trial of the terrorists, who committed this crime, was held from 2001 to 2003. As a result, six of them were sentenced to life imprisonment, and one was handed down a fourteen-year prison sentence. 

The trial, however, did not expose the persons behind this tragedy, and, as a result, the Armenian society still has serious doubts about the architects of this terrorist act.