13:53, 20 November 2008

On March 1, snipers were at work in Yerevan, opposition says

During the press conference on November 20, Levon Zurabyan, coordinator of the centre of the Armenian National Congress, promulgated an audio record of the interview of Samvel Nikoyan, chairman of the ad hoc parliamentary commission to a foreign journalist, where he said that during the events on March 1 snipers were used in the capital of Armenia.

In the record Mr Nikoyan also enumerated all the special means applied by the police during the rally on March 1 in the Grigor Lusavorich Street in Yerevan, including shields, firearms and tear gas.

According to Levon Zurabyan, Samvel Nikoyan, a member of a ruling Republican Party of Armenia and the chairman of the ad hoc commission of the National Assembly for investigating the events on March 1 in Yerevan, has actually confirmed that the authorities were purposefully shooting at people.

Outgoing from the aforesaid, Mr Zurabyan has concluded that Samvel Nikoyan is committing a crime, keeping silent with such facts in hands. However, Levon Zurabyan did not answer numerous journalists' questions on who had Nikoyan given this interview to.

Author: Lilit Ovanisyan, CK correspondent