Officials' bodyguards were dispersing rally on March 1, 2008, in Armenia, oppositionists assert

Bodyguards of oligarchs and high-ranking officials of Armenia, including Ovik Abramyan, speaker of the parliament, Mger Sedrakyan, prefect of the community Erebuni, and Suren Khachatryan, governor of Syunik, took part in dispersing the peaceful rally on March 1, 2008. This was reported on August 27 at a press conference by the members of the fact-finding group about the March 1 events, which was disbanded by President's decree.

Seda Safaryan and Andranik Kocharyan, members of the group from the oppositional parties "Heritage" and "Armenian National Congress" (ANC), demonstrated a copy of the document prescribing to give military regimentals to bodyguards from one of warehouses of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Armenia, signed by the top officials of this Ministry.

According to Ms Safaryan and Mr and Kocharyan, the bodyguards of oligarchs and high-ranking bureaucrats were assisted by local "bratki" (criminals) and hooligans. In total, about 950 persons, to whom military uniform was issued.

The members of the group said that all the data can be found in the fourth report of the group, which is already at the disposal of the temporary parliamentary commission, set up for investigating the events of March 1. According to Andranik Kocharyan, they tried to get more information about issuance of military uniform by the MoD of Armenia, but bureaucrats tried in every possible way to conceal the data.

Mr Kocharyan reported that the ANC has a video, clearly showing the trucks of the MoD with armed soldiers entering the city at 4:45, i.e., well before the announcement of the state of emergency. Note that under statements of the authorities, the MoD's units entered Yerevan after announcement of the state of emergency, that is, after 10 p.m.

"We also managed to find out details about the persons in masks, who were shooting, in the evening on March 1 in the Mashtots Avenue, in the direction of the rally. We were told that they used blank cartridges, but none of them was interrogated so far," said Mr Kocharyan.

He has added that should the temporary fail to take into account the data presented in the fourth report of the group, then, the final report, now prepared by the commission and due to publication in September, cannot be objective.