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Our guest is the President of HCA Vanadzor, human rights activist Artur Sakunts.

Yesterday, the RF Embassy in Armenia published an official statement, which assures that the criminal and people who could be protecting him will be punished accordingly. Doesn’t this indicate that they are not willing to handover the investigation of the case to Armenian legal entities?

After the phone conversation between Serzh Sargsyan and Putin, Russia’s statement was the first official statement after Gyumri event and its nature leaves room for any individual, NGO or citizen to express their attitude about it. A state whose soldier, apparently illegally left the military base and destroyed an entire family, could not possibly make such a statement. So, there is not even a slightest hint of responsibility in it. Besides, it has no content on the massacre act.

Such a statement can be made about a car accident with a fatal outcome or a criminal case. But this cannot be the statement of the country that is responsible for maintaining discipline in the military base, for controlling the situation, ultimately, it cannot be about a soldier who is an official representative of RF, more to that the terrible murder happened using a Russian weapon.

At the same time, I do not expect anything else from the RF Embassy as I should first, express such a requirement for the RA government: to Serzh Sargsyan, to the Speaker of Parliament, to the Minister of FA, to the General Prosecutor as well as to political forces, which should have not only expressed condolences but reflected on the content of the phenomenon providing proper evaluation of the situation and conclusions.

Essentially, the RA Government did not comment on responsibilities of RF or the commanding personnel of the Russian military base. What is more, until now we do not have any information whether the RA General Prosecutor has kept his promise given to the Prosecution office of Shirak region to address RF Prosecution to turn the suspect of the criminal case over to eth Armenian side. We would also expect that this request letter be published so that we would be aware of the content. Hence, I connect such content, form and approach of the statement of RF diplomatic representation with the behavior and positioning of RA government. In fact, the only behavior is silence and caution not to provoke Moscow’s anger or express comments that could be negatively perceived by RF political elite. As for the condolences, Putin’s phone call and the information disseminated by the Russian media, these are all due to the protests by Gyumri citizens. Thus, this is the feedback to the opposition of RA citizens left without government, an effort to comfort them and save the public image because the RF representatives do not have to save their images in front of the RA government.

Is it possible that the case will be entrusted to the Armenian legal entities under such public pressure?

The recent activities, meaning the recent official statements of the RF representatives, their visits to Armenia, particularly the visit of the Head of RF Investigation Committee, the joint statement with the Armenian Investigation Committee, statement of RF Embassy in Armenia, statements of interkremlin experts, allow to conclude that the Russian side is definitely not keen to surrender Permyakov to RA law enforcement bodies. Furthermore, I do not even see the Armenian side to present such a request to the RF government yet. The approach that we should work together is to cover the failure of meeting citizens’ demand.

It is explicit that the crime was committed in the territory of RA; it is explicit that Permyakov appeared under the control of RF military base command because of inactivity of RA government if I should not say with their direct support and the RF military base in the RA territory is out of control of the RA government. What is more, the military base carries no responsibilities before the RA government and RA law enforcement bodies. The Russian military base is responsible only before its government and since RF does not have any collaborative relationships with RA government, that attitude is clearly reflected in the comments of their officials and the behavior of the military base command.

Let me bring one more fact, according to the statement of the military base Permyakov left his position before 6 and he performed the crime act at 06:30. A relative found the murdered Avetisyan family at 10:00-10:30. This means that RA law enforcement bodies did not initiate any activity, did not have any information about the servicemen who had left the military base arbitrary. The RA Police Investigation operations started at 12:00. Hence, the Russian military base command did not even consider informing the RA Law enforcement bodies about Permyakov leaving the military base arbitrary and armed in which case, the RA law enforcement bodies would have started the search and could have prevented the atrocity.  The representatives of the military base did not inform about their fugitive and this is due to the irresponsible, irrespective attitude towards the RA political government.

On the other hand, an important fact should be noted: the nature of the murder, murder of the entire family eliminates the part of motive that what happened was revenge or that there was a motive to destroy Avetisyan family. The character of murder is of penalizing character and the murder of the entire family means that the goal was not to kill to punish and cause pain, in this case some family members would be left alive to suffer the pain. Murder of the entire family is directed not to the Avetisyan family but the general public. Hence, classification of the crime on a household level does not in any way justify the character of the crime or the fact of an entire family destroyed. Facts state that what happened was a terror act Avetisyan family appeared in the scene by chance and any family could be in their place. And the goal of the terror act was to create an atmosphere of fear in Gyumri and commit terror against the RA population.

They have already terrorized Serzh Sargsyan forcing him to sign TU and then EEU agreements; they already terrorized the RA government, the whole Parliament with an exception of members. The next target of the terror should have been the public because Ukraine case showed that they can frighten Yanukovich, force to reject the association agreement but they were not able to terrorize Ukraine’s population, which opposed the president and rebelled the president’s solely made decision. Now, RF and ambassador Volinkin’s concerns regarding those NGOs and all the forces that become an obstacle in Armenian-Russian relationships indicate the trend that RA public needs to be frightened not to have any opposing views about joining EEU.

And such a message has been sent, for us not to try to rebel the RA government to join the EEU and not to block RA colonization. This is a message to the public, which has changed an attitude towards RA joining to EEU as opposed to 2013. Moreover, we should take into account that all the expectation the Armenian public had from joining the EEU, i.e. improvement of living standards, reduction of electricity costs, revision of migration rules, have not been met and have even been challenged as they do not have anything else to offer to the public but the terror.

So, does that mean we cannot have any expectations for Permyakov to be surrendered to the RA law enforcement bodies?

Obviously, Permyakov will not be turned over to the RA law enforcement bodies as in case of being under control of the RA law enforcement bodies Permyakov will talk, will be deprived from the direct activities of the military base and as for now he will meet the wishes and demands of the Russian side. That is to say, we cannot speak about any objective investigation as far as he is under the control of the Russian military base command. And in this case, the crime is concealed and such statements are made to covert the process. It is an urgent issue to surrender Permyakov to the RA law enforcement bodies and if it is not done, then it means the RA government is also concealing the crime and appears among the supporters of putinist terrorism against the Armenian public.

Source: www.lragir.am