MEN ‘SURRENDER’ TO POLICE AFTER YEREVAN GUNFIGHT
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
April 20 2007

Police said on Friday that they have identified three of the
participants of a Thursday gunfight in Yerevan but shed little light
on the incident which has heightened fears of election-related violence
in Armenia.

Aram Vartanian, a reputed crime figure, reportedly came under fire
as he stood outside a cafe in the city’s southern Erebuni district
early in the afternoon. Witnesses said they heard automatic gunfire
and an explosion. No casualties were reported.

A spokesman for Armenia’s Police Service, Armen Malkhasian, told
RFE/RL that three young men who claim to have been involved in the
shootout turned themselves in after "explanatory work" conducted by
police investigators. He said one of them, identified as Arsen G.,
surrendered an assault rifle.

Malkhasian would not say whether the men claim to have shot at
Vartanian or defended him. Nor could he explain why they were not
detained or formally charged by the police.

The gunfight was followed by rumors that Vartanian, better known as
Vstrechi Aper, supports the pro-presidential Prosperous Armenia Party
(BHK) and has a tense relationship with Erebuni Mayor Mher Sedrakian,
who leads the local chapter of the governing Republican Party of
Armenia (HHK). Sedrakian was reportedly involved in last month’s
violent dispute between local activists of the two top contenders of
the May 12 parliamentary elections.

However, a BHK spokesman denied Vartanian has close ties with the
party. "To my knowledge, none of the individuals involved in the
incident has any connection with the Prosperous Armenia Party,"
Baghdasar Mherian told RFE/RL.

In a separate development, Armenian prosecutors confirmed on Friday
reports that they found on April 9 a burned car which they said
was used in an unspecified "particularly severe crime" committed
recently. The Office of the Prosecutor-General released the sketch of
a certain Artur who it said bought the car in late February, asking
those who can recognize him to immediately contact law-enforcement
authorities.

Newspaper reports last week said the prosecutors believe the black
Audi-100 carried the gunmen that wounded Gyumri Mayor Vartan Ghukasian
and killed three of his bodyguards on April 2. The brazen shooting
was likewise linked by some media to the ongoing election campaign.