Blurred statements of the officials poured oil on the flames: Ex-President on Gymuri murder

“The Gyumri crime which shook whole Armenia is striking in its brutality,” ex-President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan said in an interview with 2rd.am.

“It was obvious that the people’s indignation could grow into large-scale protests with unpredictable outcomes. The authorities should have taken forestalling measures to prevent them. And first of all, they should have unequivocally assured the investigation of the crime by the Armenian law enforcement agencies and trial of the perpetrator by the Armenian court (we already had a precedent of such a decision in 1999),” Robert Kocharyan said.

“I am convinced that both the Armenian and Russian sides needed it as it would rule out any attempt to zoom a concrete tragic case to the scale of Armenia-Russia relations in general. Blurred, contradictory and confused statements of our officials only poured oil on the flames, adding a flavor of national humiliation to the escalated situation. And this is already a highly explosive combination and unfortunately, people’s anger was poured on the Armenian policemen.

In any event, it was a horrifying tragedy. My family and I are deeply shocked by what happened and are mourning together with everyone”, stated Robert Kocharyan.