SIS director doesn’t rule out amending criminal charges against Kocharyan

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 1, ARMENPRESS. Special Investigative Service (SIS) director Sasun Khachatryan doesn’t rule out that as a result of the evidence on investigator Vahagn Harutyunyan’s falsifications of evidence in the March 1 probe the charges against former President Robert Kocharyan might be amended.

“As soon as we decide that there is sufficient evidence to change the charges against Kocharyan you will know about it,” Khachatryan told reporters.

“Let us simply reason. Robert Kocharyan was saying that the army wasn’t involved, that it didn’t open fire. Then, when we found out that it had been involved, opinions were voiced that it was involved simply by being stationed in barracks, and it didn’t open fire. Then, we substantiated that the army opened fire. These discoveries already speak about the bullet casings of the military being faked. I actually find this discovery to be very significant, because with this an attempt was made to entire cover up the real circumstances and break the case,” he said.

Earlier the SIS said that an investigator in the March 1 case has falsified evidence while in office from 2007-2011.

The investigator, Vahagn Harutyunyan, is a justice major general who subsequently went on to serve as deputy chairman of the investigative committee. He resigned in July, 2018.

But he himself used to tell reporters on previous occasions that the investigation into the March 1 case is being carried out with flaws.

The March 1 probe is an ongoing investigation into the deadly 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan. 10 people died in the clashes.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan