Armenia: fact-finding group on March 1, 2008, events suspends work

Three members of the fact-finding group that was set up to collect information about the events on March 1, 2008, who represented the power and the Ombudsman, have made a decision on temporary suspension of their authorities in the group. This was reported to journalists by Levon Zurabyan and Stepan Safaryan, representatives of oppositional organizations - the Armenian National Congress and the "Heritage" Party.

The oppositionists have characterized this step of the members of the group - Robert Avakyan and Gevork Tovmasyan, on the power side, and Ombudsman's representative Vage Stepanyan, as illegal and having no legal grounds.

"We're concerned by this step, and we've serious grounds to believe that this step was made under authorities' pressure. They are based on the fact that their decision was made after the first results of the investigation - data on the reasons of death of police officer Hamlet Tadevosyan - was handed over to the Temporary Parliamentary Commission for studying March 1 events," said Levon Zurabyan.

Let us note here that according to the report of the fact-finding group, Hamlet Tadevosyan died not from the explosion of a grenade thrown at him by demonstrators, as the official version asserts, but from the explosion of the grenade which was attached to the policeman's belt.