14:50, 9 September 2023
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 9, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Vahagn Khachaturyan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan, Deputy Mayor of Yerevan Tigran Avinyan and other government officials on September 9 attended the inauguration of the statue of Karen Demirchyan, the Speaker of Parliament of Armenia who was assassinated in 1999 during a terror attack in the Armenian parliament.
The statue was opened in front of the late politician’s namesake Sports and Concert Complex in Yerevan.
Pashinyan delivered a speech during the event, praising Demirchyan’s career and legacy.
“His idea was to transform Armenia from an agrarian country into an industrial one,” Pashinyan said.
“Unfortunately, we have to say that we’ve created far less since gaining independence than before, during Karen Demirchyan’s life. This is a problem,” he added.
The Prime Minister noted Demirchyan’s enduring popularity among the people.
“I’d like to note that during Soviet times Karen Demirchyan was never a despot, and this is one of the reasons that the people love him,” Pashinyan said.
“I don’t want to believe, and I can’t believe that the hand that opened fire at Karen Demirchyan could have any spiritual, value or humane connection with the Armenian people. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that anyone who’d walked on this land and drank this water could’ve thought about plotting the assassination of Karen Demirchyan. That wasn’t a crime against individuals, that was a crime against the Republic of Armenia,” the Armenian PM said.
PM Pashinyan said that many people expect authorities to reveal the masterminds behind the assassination.
He said that the re-opening of various criminal investigations has revealed evidence tampering on the highest levels of the government committed in the past. “The most recent example is the March 1 case, when the re-opened investigation revealed that the cartridge cases were collected and destroyed, then other casings were presented as evidence. But I think that it is the people’s desire, including mine, and it would be very good, it would bring great honor to Armenia, to the law enforcement system, to give concrete answers to the citizens on why and how that [assassination] happened, and who are those responsible for it,” Pashinyan said.
Karen Demirchyan’s sons Samvel and Stepan Demirchyan were also in attendance.
On October 27, 1999 a group of five heavily armed gunmen led by Nairi Hunanyan stormed into the parliament while it was in session and assassinated Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Speaker of Parliament Karen Demirchyan, Deputy Speakers Yuri Bakhshyan and Ruben Miroyan, as well as three lawmakers and a Cabinet member. The gunmen held the remaining MPs in parliament hostage until surrendering to authorities the next day.
The five perpetrators, which include Hunanyan’s younger brother and uncle, were sentenced to life in prison in 2003.
In 2020, authorities re-opened the investigation to reveal the masterminds of the attack.