NAIRI HOUNANIAN IS COMMITTED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The trial was lasting for three years. Neither the investigation nor the trial allowed giving a final answer to the question if the terrorists were acting independently or there were people backing them. The separate criminal case entered in a deadlock. Once the investigation bodies were actively elaborating a version according to which the highest authorities of the country were connected with the events taken place in the parliament. However, the political opponents of Kocharian did not manage to find any basis for such conclusions despite the fact that after the tragedy the nowadays oppositional figures were heading the cabinet of Ministers and controlling the prosecutor’s office. (The younger brother of the Prime Minister, Aram Sarkisian, now one of the most radical oppositional figures, took the post of the passed away Prime Minister).

The leader of the band of the terrorists, 36 years old journalist Nairi Hounanian takes all the responsibility for the implemented action and continues to say that he wished to “liberate Armenia from the anti-popular regime”. The band, besides Hounanian, included his younger brother and uncle as well as two friends. According to their evidences, first they were planning to kill only Vazgen Sarkisian and to organize extraordinary elections. Before it, Nairi Hounaian himself was going to lead the country. The day for the operation was chosen Wednesday because all the Ministers were in the National Assembly to answer the questions of the legislators. It did not take them much to find an automatic gun and enter the Parliament building. Only after shooting the plan started to fail. The calls of Hounanian to support the revolution addressed to his fellow-countrymen remained unanswered. Despite his expectations, the people did not approve the attempt of the coup d’etat.

During the whole trial there were attempts undertaken to use the investigation in political aims. It became more politicized as the son and the brother of the passed away leaders, Stepan Demirchyan and Aram Sarkisian, are now heading the parliamentary opposition. The delay of the trial was caused not only by the Presidential and parliamentary elections hold this year but also by the fact that Armenia undertook the commitment to abolish the death penalty. The opposition was insisting on the necessity to make exceptions for the members of Hounanian’s band, while Strasbourg was against. It took from the political authorities of the country half a year to convince the legislators. In early September the parliament ratified the 6th protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights supposing the abolishment of death penalty. A month ago the MPs made a new amendment to the Criminal code to guarantee that after 20 years no article for pre-time release will be applied for the case of Nairi Hounanian. But than it appeared that the procedures of the Armenian Criminal Code exclude the retroactive effect of the law in case of its toughening. It means that Nairi Hounanian may still have the possibility to visit personally the graves of those whom he himself killed.