Investigative Committee reviews murder cases dating back to the 1990s

Investigative Committee units have been instructed to review murder cases dating back to the 1990s.

Committee Chairman Artur Poghosyan announced this during preliminary discussions of the draft 2027 state budget at a joint meeting of the National Assembly’s standing committees. He was responding to Civil Contract faction MP Andranik Kocharyan, who referred to recent breakthroughs in cases involving murders committed years ago and asked about ways to improve the system’s effectiveness.

Poghosyan said the work was ongoing and covered thousands of criminal proceedings.

According to him, the reviews showed that, in some cases, evidence available from the outset had been sufficient to identify those involved in the crimes.

“It is not that we solved these cases: the body of evidence was such from the outset that these cases were already solved. We have made no new discovery; the case had been solved from the beginning. We have merely established certain legal grounds,” the committee chairman said.

He explained that decisions had previously been taken to discontinue criminal prosecution against certain individuals. Steps have now been taken to overturn those decisions and continue the prosecutions.

Poghosyan also addressed the possible accountability of investigators, prosecutors and senior officials who had previously worked on the cases, in connection with abuse of official powers or failure to act in an official capacity.

The committee chairman said the review also covered high-profile cases whose resolution the public had awaited for years.