Armenian police say media reports impede probe into editor’s car blaze
Arminfo
8 Dec 04
Yerevan, 8 December: The investigation into the explosion in the car
of the editor of Yerevan daily Aykakan Zhamanak, Nikol Pashinyan, is
continuing. Measures are being taken to ensure that the investigation
is complete, comprehensive and objective, the press service of the
Armenian police has said in a statement.
It must be noted that at approximately 2040 local time [1640 gmt]
on 22 November, the Niva jeep belonging to Nikol Pashinyan caught
fire outside Aykakan Zhamanak’s editorial office.
“Without waiting for the examination of the scene of the incident
to complete, Pashinyan made a hasty, unfounded, subjective and
deliberately provocative statement saying that the explosion of his
car was allegedly pre-planned,” the statement says. A forensic fire
and technical examination was set for the next day and it concluded
on 2 December that “the blaze was caused by open fire or, which is
less likely, by malfunctioning cables”.
“As for the blast theory offered by certain media outlets, experts
have ruled it out,” the police say in the statement.
[Passage omitted: reported details]
“We think that against the backdrop of the investigation into
the incident, which has been instituted not at anyone’s behest or
contrary to anyone’s interests, but within the framework of the
law and in line with the requirements of the law, the statements
by certain media outlets about the ‘obedience’ and indifference of
the law-enforcement bodies look at least strange and subjective.
They are not only strange, but also ineffective in terms of a prompt
and complete investigation,” the Armenian police say in the statement.