YEREVAN. – Armenia’s Chief of Police Valeri Osipyan, who is an injured party in the case of the Sasna Tsrer armed group, objected to granting amnesty to the members of this armed group. He noted this at Wednesday’s court hearing of this criminal case.

“I’ve lost friends [fellow police officers, during the two-week standoff at the police patrol regiment building in capital city Yerevan],” he stated in court. “Each and everyone shall carry his punishment prescribed by law.”

Under the draft amnesty law, the Sasna Tsrer armed group members who are not charged with murder can be amnestied, but solely if the injured parties who were taken hostages and had suffered physical damages during the aforesaid standoff do not object to this amnesty.  

In protest of the then authorities, the Sasna Tsrer armed group took over a police patrol regiment building in Yerevan and held hostages, but later surrendered in July 2016. Three police officers, however, were killed during the two-week standoff.