“I’ve experienced emotional moments upon learning the news” – Pashinyan on former police official’s arrest in 2008 unrest probe

According to PM Nikol Pashinyan the Special Investigative Service’s investigation into the deadly 2008 unrest in Yerevan is “consistent”.

The PM was speaking to reporters in parliament on June 5 when asked to comment on the June 4 arrest of a former high ranking police official in suspicion of manslaughter during the 2008 post-election protests.

“This first of all shows the consistent work of the Special Investigative Service. And we all understand that during the past 10 years it wasn’t an investigation that took place, but everything was done for all possible facts to be covered up. And the fact that the bullet cases are replaced means that everything is replaced, the persons, the incidents and the figures. And in these conditions, if the SIS was able to achieve for a concrete person to be arrested…after learning about this news I simply, naturally, experienced very emotional moments. But this is just about an arrest yet, we still don’t know if charges will be pressed or not, how will it proceed, but that all killings of March 1 must be solved, and the fact that clearly the investigation from March 1-2 2008 was done in the direction of concealing is in my opinion obvious,” the PM said.

Pashinyan mentioned that the materials disclosed by the fact-finding team show that officials are trying to conceal the truth.

“You probably recall the disclosed parts of the fact-finding team’s work where it was clear also from Andranik Kocharyan’s questioning that representatives of the police troops aren’t telling the truth, but are rather attempting with possible methods to conceal it. Where was an episode where an official said how assault rifles were put into a car’s trunk and brought and distributed to people,” the PM said.

On June 4 authorities reported that Gegham Petrosyan, a police official who served as Deputy Commander of the Police Troops in 2008, was arrested in suspicion of killing a protester during the March 1-2 events in Yerevan.

The March 1 events colloquially refer to the 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan, when clashes between security forces and protesters left 10 people, including two security officers dead. The unrest spanned from late February until late March. The events are known simply as March First because it was on this day when police troops violently dispersed protesters in downtown Yerevan.

The protests were led by First President of Armenia Levon-Ter Petrosyan, who according to official results of the election lost to Serzh Sargsyan. Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters believed the election was rigged.

Robert Kocharyan was the outgoing president at the time.

Incumbent PM Nikol Pashinyan was a senior member of Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s political party at the time and was coordinating the protests.