Law-enforcement authorities have identified security officers, who shot and
killed opposition protesters during the post-election clashes in Yerevan, and
are now determining whether the use of lethal force was justified, a senior
investigator said on Tuesday.

At least eight civilians and two interior troops were killed as security forces
tried to disperse thousands of supporters of opposition leader Levon
Ter-Petrosian who barricaded themselves at a vast street intersection outside
the Yerevan mayor’s office on March 1. The clashes, the worst in Armenia’s
history, followed the break-up earlier in the day of Ter-Petrosian’s non-stop
demonstrations in the city’s Liberty Square against official results of the
February 19 disputed presidential election.

According to the Special Investigative Service (SIS), a law-enforcement agency
subordinated to Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General, three of the
civilian victims were killed by tear gas grenades fired by riot police from a
very shory distance. Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian claimed earlier this
month that the investigators still do not know which police officers mishandled
the riot equipment.

Neither Hovsepian nor any other law-enforcement official has so far publicly
commented on the circumstances in which the five other civilians died. In an
interview with RFE/RL, Vahagn Harutiunian, a senior SIS official leading the
controversial official inquiry into the unrest, said the investigators have
finally identified and questioned officers who shot them.

“All of them are known,” he said. “All of them have been interrogated. The
investigation is continuing.”

Citing “the interests of the investigation,” Harutiunian refused to reveal the
identity of the shooters or specify which security agency they work for.

“Use of firearms [by a law-enforcement officer] is not necessarily a crime,”
said Harutiunian. “If firearms are used for preventing crimes or other
legitimate purposes, that is naturally not punishable by criminal law.

“But that doesn’t mean we rule out the possibility of an unjustified use of
firearms. The matter is being investigated.”

The Armenian government has justified the use of lethal force against the
opposition protesters, saying that it thereby prevented a coup d’etat allegedly
plotted by Ter-Petrosian and his associates. It has claimed that some of the
protesters carried weapons, pointing to the deaths of two interior troop
servicemen in the unprecedented street battles. However, none of more than 100
opposition members and supporters arrested following the clashes was charged in
connection with those deaths.

The Ter-Petrosian-led opposition dismisses the coup allegations, insisting that
the authorities brutally suppressed the massive post-election demonstrations in
Yerevan. It considers former President Robert Kocharian the main mastermind of
the “slaughter.”

The official version of events has also been questioned by Armenia’s human
rights ombudsman and international human rights bodies such as the Council of
Europe. They have repeatedly urged the government to allow an independent
inquiry involving foreign experts.

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