September 24, 2009 - 19:34 AMT
Interim committee's report called into question again
«Interim parliamentary committee investigating March 1-2, 2008 incidents did really do certain work, but that cannot be considered enough,» NDU member Artavazd Vardanyan told today a news conference in Yerevan.

Committee's task, in his opinion, was to disclose circumstances in which people died, assess the legitimacy of authorities' activities and take relevant measures to avoid such tragedies in future.

Authorities set up the Committee in an attempt to conceal the real causes of deaths, Vardanyan finds. «When the committee started its work, we thought our report would lead to the resignation of certain senior officials. But all that proved untrue, as we saw several month ago,» he explained.

Besides, considering that inquest bodies took away all video records committee had received from fact-finding group, «it's unclear what served as basis for its conclusions,» the speaker added.

To journalists' question why he touched upon negative aspects now, Vardanyan answered he hadn't been familiar with the document before it was distributed among parliament members. «I'd like to add that I have drawn up my own report, introducing many developments in a different manner,» Vardanyan noted.

He also said that his report thoroughly described how police operations resulted in Zakar Hovhannisyan's death.

Ansswering a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter's question concerning Republican Party's allegations on not being entitled to investigate death causes, he noted, «After reading the report you are under the impression that committee attempted to justify inquest bodies and wrote the report based on their conclusions.»