Man sentenced to life for Armenia parliament attack commits suicide

Associated Press Worldstream
April 16, 2004 Friday

YEREVAN, Armenia — One of the six men sentenced to life for a 1999
attack on parliament that killed Armenia’s prime minister and seven
other people committed suicide in prison on Friday, officials said.

A guard looked into Vram Galstian’s cell in the morning and saw
him hanging from a bedsheet, said Justice Ministry spokesman Ara
Sagatelian.

Attackers who claimed they were saving Armenia from economic collapse
and official corruption stormed into the parliament on Oct. 27, 1999,
killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian, Parliament Speaker Karen
Demirchian and six other officials and lawmakers.

Galstian was one of six men sentenced to life in prison last December
for the attack after being convicted of murdering state official or
public figures, terrorism and other charges. Galstian was an uncle
of two of the others sentenced, including the alleged leader of the
group, Nairi Unanian.

Galstian had seemed fine during a check of prisoners earlier in the
morning, but the guard decided to look in on him after noticing that
no noise had come from his cell in some time, Sagatelian said. He
had been moved into a single-person cell a few days ago at his own
request, Sagatelian said.

Armenia abolished the death penalty last year but passed a law
preventing people sentenced to life in prison for terrorist attacks
or assassinations from winning early release.