ARMENIAN MP WOUNDED IN ARMED INCIDENT IN MOSCOW

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
September 26, 2007 Wednesday 12:51 PM EST

A criminal case has been opened into an armed incident that occurred
at Metropol hotel in Moscow last night, Chief of the Tverskoye CID
department Sergei Baluchevsky told Tass on Wednesday. The criminal
case was opened on charges of attempted murder, he said.

The incident took place at around 4.00 a.m. Wednesday. Three visitors
quarrelled at the Metropol casino, and one of them fired a shot at
his opponent and stabbed him with a knife. The victim -a citizen
of Armenia, was hospitalized. The other two men involved in the
incident escaped.

Investigators cannot talk to the victim yet because he is in a surgery
room, Baluchevsky said. Police have been searching for the victim’s
companions who have been put on the wanted list, he said.

Earlier, a source from the Armenian embassy in Moscow told Tass
that the victim is a deputy of the Armenian parliament, Tigran
Arzakantsyan. The 41- year- old businessman arrived in Moscow on
private business. Late on Tuesday he attended a meeting of a delegation
of the Armenian government with Armenian students educated in Moscow.