GUNFIGHT ERUPTS IN YEREVAN
By Karine Kalantarian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
April 19 2007

A gunfight broke out in Yerevan in broad daylight on Thursday, in what
police believe was an attempt on the life of a reputed crime figure.

Witnesses said unknown gunmen opened fired and threw a hand grenade
at businessman Aram Vartanian, better known as Vstrechi Aper, as he
stood outside a cafe in the city’s southern Erebuni district with
several friends. They were said to have shot back at the attackers
and escaped unscathed.

Law-enforcement officers at the scene said the shooting left a teenage
boy injured by shattered glass.

The Armenian police immediately began a nationwide manhunt for the
gunmen, with uniformed and plainclothes officers armed with assault
rifles randomly stopping cars leaving and entering the city. No
arrests were announced as of late evening.

The chief of Yerevan’s police department, Nerses Nazarian, told
RFE/RL that he believes the attack was aimed at killing Vartanian,
who was questioned by investigators immediately after the incident.

Nazarian could not say whether the shooting might have been connected
with the ongoing campaigning for next month’s parliamentary elections.

Some Erebuni residents said Vartanian, who allegedly has underworld
connections, has a tense relationship with Mher Sedrakian,
the district’s controversial mayor who himself had survived an
assassination bid in July 2003. A senior member of the governing
Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), Sedrakian was reportedly involved
in last month’s violent dispute between local leaders of the HHK and
another establishment party, Prosperous Armenia.

The Erebuni gunfight came just two weeks after gunmen wounded the mayor
of the country’s second largest city of Gyumri, also affiliated with
the HHK, and killed three of his bodyguards in a drive-by shooting
30 kilometers west of the Armenian capital. Nobody has been arrested
in connection with that attack.