"Zhamanak": trial on murder in Gyumri to start before August 10

As part of the agreements signed by Russia and Armenia, the first session on the case of the mass murder in Gyumri is to be held before August 10 in the territory of the 102^nd Russian military base, the newspaper "Zhamanak" writes today with reference to its sources.

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. Permyakov officially admitted the charges against him. The mass murder in Gyumri caused a wave of protests after a GPO source said that the suspect would not be handed over to Armenian law enforcement bodies, since he is a citizen of Russia.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on June 26, during the meeting of the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan with the Russian delegation headed by Maxim Sokolov, the Minister of Transports of Russia and the Co-Chair of the Armenian-Russian Intergovernmental Commission, the decision was announced to transfer the Permyakov's murder case to the Armenian party.

According to the source, the Russian party will announce its indictment on Permyakov's case and state that the further criminal investigation will be run by law enforcement authorities of Armenia, the "Tert.am" reports, referring to the Armenian-language "Zhamanak".

"At that moment, the court session may be interrupted and, from that moment on, Permyakov will pass over under the jurisdiction of law enforcement bodies of Armenia," the publication of the newspaper says.

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