Advocates doubt alleged motives for murder of Avetisyan family members

In the course of the meeting initiated by the Gyumri Journalists' Club "Asparez" and the media centre founded by the NGOs' project "Social Club of Journalists", Armenian lawyers and rights defenders have discussed the progress of the investigation into the murder committed in Gyumri, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

The society continues to monitor the situation with the investigation into the murder in Gyumri. This has been stated by Lusine Sahakyan, an advocate of successors of the Avetisyan family.

According to the advocate, at present, it is still difficult to understand the "cause-and-effect relationship in the case of the murder of the Avetisyan family members."

"Why Permyakov, shot and killed members of the whole family if he, according to the widespread reports of his testimony, just came in to drink some water? Why, when noticed by the family members, Permyakov did not run away, but on the contrary, killed all of them? Why Permyakov left clothes with his initials at the crime scene? The most incredible and incomprehensible is the murder of children," Lusine Sahakyan has noted.

Artur Sakunts, the head of the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office, a rights defender and a representative of the successors of the Avetisyan family, has expressed his doubts that investigators will be able to reveal the motivates of the suspected killer of the Avetisyan family members. According to Arthur Sakunts, the doubts arise from the testimonies of the neighbours, who claim that they did not heard the shots, despite the fact that they live in five meters from the house of the Avetisyan family.

The rights defender has also noted that the difficult situation will arise after the completion of the preliminary investigation when the investigating authorities will have to submit the results of the investigation to the court.

"Two criminal cases are underway. The Armenian side will send the case to the Armenian court; and the Russian side to the Russian court. And for me, it is still not clear how it will look like," Arthur Sakunts has noted.

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