ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER MARGARIAN BURIED IN YEREVAN
The Associated Press
Published: March 28, 2007
YEREVAN, Armenia: Tens of thousands of Armenians on Wednesday paid
their respects to Prime Minister Andranik Margarian, who died Sunday
of a heart attack aged 55.
Margarian’s coffin was pulled on an artillery caisson to the Spendiarov
Opera Theater, where it lay in state and crowds filed in to view it
for three hours. The body then was taken for interment at the Komitas
Parthenon, where many prominent Armenian artistic and public figures
are buried.
Parliament Speaker Tigran Torosian, in his elegy, said that Margarian
often joked "that the people would remember him for what he left
undone, but in reality he will remain in the people’s memory because
of his achievements."
Under the Armenian political system, the prime minister has mostly
executive powers and is a much less powerful figure than the president.
Margarian, educated as a computer specialist, became active in
opposition to the Soviet Union in the 1970s and was imprisoned for two
years in that decade for espousing Armenian independence, according
to his official biography.
Margarian is survived by a wife, two daughters and a son.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
