Armenian security forces do not bear responsibility for the deaths of at least
ten people in their post-election clashes with opposition protesters in Yerevan,
the recently appointed chief of the national police said on Monday.

Major-General Alik Sargsian claimed that the ongoing trials of opposition
members will disprove opposition allegations that the March 1 clashes were a
government-orchestrated slaughter aimed at enforcing the official results of the
disputed February 19 presidential election.

“The trials will end shortly,” Sargsian told RFE/RL in an interview. “You will
see that we have evidence to disprove slander addressed to police.”

“I think the police can not be blamed for what happened. They may have only
worked slowly, they may have not been organized at one point,” he said.

The clashes broke out hours after thousands of supporters of opposition
presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian barricaded themselves in a sprawling
area around the Yerevan mayor’s office. They gathered there following the
break-up earlier on March 1 of Ter-Petrosian’s non-stop protests in the city’s
Liberty Square.

Sargsian, who served as a regional governor until June and had no part in the
bloody suppression of the opposition protests, claimed that the Armenian police
still do not know who shot and killed at least eight civilians and two police
servicemen. “I really regret that people who committed murders have not yet
appeared before court,” he said.

Nearly 100 opposition activists and supporters were arrested in the wake of what
the Armenian authorities call an opposition attempt to stage a coup d’etat. None
of them was charged with murder.

Sargsian resented suggestions that law-enforcement officers involved in the
worst street violence in Armenia’s history should have also been prosecuted for
the use of lethal force. “Why should have any policeman been arrested? What
for?” he said. “Why do you think the police broke the law? We have investigated
[the police actions] in detail.”

Sargsian said he will publicize those details after the end of the ongoing
parliamentary inquiry into the clashes. The mandate of an ad hoc commission of
the National Assembly conducting the inquiry expires next month.

Samvel Nikoyan, the commission chairman and a senior member of the governing
Republican Party, accused the police last month of not cooperating and even
hindering the probe. He said the police have refused to provide his panel with
sufficient information regarding their actions on March 1.

The criticism dealt a further blow to the credibility of the official theory of
the unrest that has been challenged not only by the Armenian opposition but the
state human rights defender, Armen Harutiunian. It also paved the way for the
launch of a separate, supposedly independent inquiry which was suggested
recently by a senior official from the Council of Europe.

Visiting Yerevan in July, Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe commissioner
for human rights, sounded skeptical about the Nikoyan-led commission’s ability
to investigate the March 1 clashes in view of its deep mistrust by the
Ter-Petrosian-led opposition. Hammarberg proposed the creation of a new, smaller
investigative body that would only collect key facts relating to the unrest and
present them to the parliamentary panel. The latter would then make a “political
evaluation” based on those facts, he said.

Nikoyan told RFE/RL on Monday that the smaller body is already being set up and
that it will comprise an equal number of government and opposition
representatives. He said that is why he has delayed the release of his
commission’s interim report. “I think I should wait for the fact-finding team to
present the results of its work before releasing the report,” said Nikoyan.

However, a leader of Zharangutyun, the only opposition party represented in the
Armenian parliament, said that it has not been offered to take part in the work
of the fact-finding team.

By Anush Martirosian and Astghik Bedevian