YEREVAN. – Zhoghovurd newspaper of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes: October 27, 1999 was again a Wednesday, the day of questions and answers with the government in the RA NA [(National Assembly)], when 8 statesmen, headed by NA Speaker Karen Demirchyan and Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, were shot.
The criminal case initiated on that occasion still has questions. About two years ago, in December 2019, the RA Prosecutor General's Office had granted the appeal of the lawyers of Anahit Bakhshyan, the widow of NA Deputy Speaker Yuri Bakhshyan who fell victim to the October 27 crime, to start a new investigation into the part separated and terminated from the "October 27" case.
To remind, that part of the case was separated in 2000 to find out if there were other participants in the crime, instigators, and possible organizers. However, 4 years later, the Prosecutor General's Office had terminated it due to the lack of corpus delicti. About two years after the reopening of the terminated case, no new public details are known about it. Zhoghovurd daily has learned that many people were interrogated, documents were studied within the framework of the case. The information was confirmed in a conversation with us by the prosecutor's advisor, Gor Abrahamyan.
He explained the fact that no publicizing has been made on the case for about two years by the fact that it contains rather large elements of confidentiality. "There are no new charges," he said and assured: "The investigation of the case has not been put to sleep."
Abrahamyan, however, did not detail who were summoned for questioning within the framework of the case. In a conversation with Zhoghovurd daily, Anahit Bakhshyan's lawyer Zaruhi Mejlumyan mentioned that Bakhshyan was summoned for questioning once in 2 years. Mejlumyan herself also does not know additional details. It should be noted that Anahit Bakhshyan was connecting the reopening of the above-mentioned case with a change of political course in Armenia. After the political reshuffle in 2018, the legal successors of the victims of October 27 were really hopeful that [PM] Nikol Pashinyan's government would get involved in fully solving the tragic crime.
The reality, however, is that more than three years after the change of power [in Armenia], the representatives of the law enforcement system [in the country] not only did not find out and present anything new about the crime that killed eight people, but, also, Judge Samvel Uzunyan of the case of "October 27" left Armenia days after the case was sent for a new investigation.
