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On June 22, 2011 www.1in.am and the “Zhamanak” Daily addressed the claim of a firearm charge against Arman Yengibaryan and his subsequent murder by a police official, which occurred several days ago.

The press releases revealed suspicion on how A. Yengibaryan, who had been wanted by the RA Government for 4 months, and turned out to participate in a program broadcasted via H2 TV Station as a cook, had remained unrecognized. We declare that Arman Yengibaryan had not been under suspicion or wanted.

During the months of April through June, a number of assaults occurred at various districts inYerevan and in all of the cases, the man entering the apartmentsintroduced himself as an officer of the water supply company, Jrmugh-Koyughi, CJSC. With the intention to reveal the identity of the robber, a portrait of the suspect was createdbased on the descriptions of the victims, according to which, the police were looking not for Arman Yengibaryan but for the person depicted in the  portrait who had introduced himself as an officer of the water supply company.

On June 14, the police station received an alarm, pursuant to which, an unknown person, introducing himself as a water supply company officer, attempted to break into one of the apartments located on Bagratunyats Street. Suspecting that incident was from the same series of robberies, the police immediately dispatched to the crime scene.  The police chased the man, suspected of assault, to the Garegin Nzhdeh Metro Station.   The man refused to obey orders given by the police and shot a gun in an overcrowded place. After some warning shots, the police fired at the man and attempted to neutralize him by wounding him. During the preliminary investigation, five victims in the case recognized Armen Yengibaryan by photos as the perpetrator of the assaults.

Department of Public Relations and Information of the RA Police
It should be noted that this clarification does not deny the press releases published at www.1in.am and the “Zhamanak” Daily. To begin with, if the suspect in the attacks had been sought as a potential criminal rather than a missing person, he could and should have been wanted and prosecuted. In this case, the name and surname of the wanted person had not been known, so no prosecution would have been initiated against him. It is theoretically possible that, if in fact, Arman Yengibaryan, had been wanted, he could not have fit in that context or to be more precise, he could not have been wanted, because he had never been registered by the police, had never appeared in a crime scene, but had simply been working as a cook.

In this case, it is not crucially important whether the person depicted in the subjective portrait (photo) had been wanted. What is of greater importance is that the victims were able to easily identify the suspect robber based on the subjective portrait created by them. It is curious that they did not recognize him on TV, but after his murder all of the victims surprisingly started to recognize Arman Yengibaryan.

First, it was stated in the press release that the victims had recognized Armen Yengibaryan. The police will probably identify whether the victims had recognized Armen or that there has been a spelling mistake: (Armen was mentioned instead of Arman). Secondly, pursuant to the disseminated press release, the police, who had received “red flags”, suspected that the case might have been from the series of assaults under the guise of a water supply company official, prosecuted the suspect and after giving warning shots, they were able to neutralize him near Garegin Nzhdeh Metro Station, because he had not obeyed the lawful orders of the police and had used firearm in a crowded place.

We should mention here that assassination and neutralization are quite different things. Neutralization means averting someone’s harmful actions.  In this case, shooting the suspect in the leg could have been considered neutralization, because in that case the suspect could not escape or run away. More precisely, shooting him in the arm could have prevented the exchange of gunfire.(We’ll address the legality of application of firearm in the future).  The police official killed Arman Yengibaryan, which had nothing to do with neutralization and which they were not entitled to do even if he had been an actual suspect. The fact that the actions of the police officials were unlawful can be assumed from the circumstance that two shots were fired against the “suspect” both to his belly and to his head. The fact is that the man was brutally killed. The fact of murder for mandatory protection purposes becomes obvious here considering the fact that Arman Yengibaryan could have had no connection with the committed crimes. Maybe it was unfortunate that he had the bad luck of having similar characteristics of the actual criminal?

We hope, the preliminary investigation and court proceedings will reveal all the details of the case. Moreover, Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor, an interested party in this case, sent an inquiry to SIS Chief, Andranik Mirzoyan, with the following questions: Has a criminal case been initiated over Arman Yengibaryan’s death? And if yes, pursuant to which article of the RA Criminal Code has it been filed? How many witnesses with the case have been interrogated? What examinations have been appointed? And if yes, have the conclusions of the examination been received? Which stage is the preliminary investigation at?

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