Interim committee’s report called into question again
24.09.2009 18:34 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ «Interim parliamentary committee investigating
March 1-2, 2008 incidents did really do certain work, but that cannot
be considered enough,» NDU member Artavazd Vardanyan told today a
news conference in Yerevan.

Committee’s task, in his opinion, was to disclose circumstances in
which people died, assess the legitimacy of authorities’ activities
and take relevant measures to avoid such tragedies in future.

Authorities set up the Committee in an attempt to conceal the real
causes of deaths, Vardanyan finds. «When the committee started its
work, we thought our report would lead to the resignation of certain
senior officials. But all that proved untrue, as we saw several month
ago,» he explained.

Besides, considering that inquest bodies took away all video records
committee had received from fact-finding group, «it’s unclear what
served as basis for its conclusions,» the speaker added.

To journalists’ question why he touched upon negative aspects now,
Vardanyan answered he hadn’t been familiar with the document before it
was distributed among parliament members. «I’d like to add that I
have drawn up my own report, introducing many developments in a
different manner,» Vardanyan noted.

He also said that his report thoroughly described how police
operations resulted in Zakar Hovhannisyan’s death.

Ansswering a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter’s question concerning Republican
Party’s allegations on not being entitled to investigate death causes,
he noted, «After reading the report you are under the impression
that committee attempted to justify inquest bodies and wrote the
report based on their conclusions.»