14:53, 6 February 2015

Parliamentary hearing on Gyumri tragedy postponed because of incident on Karabakh motor rally

Memorial service for Sergey Avetisyan in St. Nshan chapel. Gyumri, January 20, 2015. Photo by Narek Tumanyan for the "Caucasian Knot".

The oppositional parliamentary troika has postponed the consideration of the issue of the closed hearing on the murder of the Avetisyan family in Gyumri, because of the incident that occurred during the motor rally in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), said Naira Zograbyan, the secretary of the "Prosperous Armenia" faction.

On January 12, in Gyumri, six members of the Avetisyan family were assassinated. The only survivor of the attack – the six-month-old Sergey Avetisyan – was hospitalized in critical condition and on January 19, he died. A Russian regular soldier Valery Permyakov was arrested as a suspect of committing the massacre. He is kept under reinforced guard in the territory of the 102^nd Russian military base. On January 21, Armenian investigators interrogated him at the base. According to the Investigating Committee (IC) of Armenia, Permyakov officially admitted the charges against him.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on January 30, the oppositional troika in the parliament – the "Prosperous Armenia", the "Heritage" and the Armenian National Congress (ANC) – offered to hold a hearing on the Gyumri massacre.

However, as noted Naira Zograbyan, after on January 31 supporters of the "Pre-Parliament", who took part in a propaganda motor rally, were beaten up en route in the NKR, it was decided to postpone the consideration of the issue.

"Since it was decided today to send a parliamentary delegation to the NKR in the context of the incident in Berdzor, we decided to postpone the issue of the closed hearing until the next week," Ms Zograbyan told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to her story, the issue will be raised on 9 February.

The mass murder in Gyumri triggered a wave of protests that escalated into clashes with the police. Protesters demanded that Permyakov to be tried in Armenia.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.

Author: Inessa Sargsyan

Source: CK correspondent