Today marks the 20th anniversary of the attack on the Armenian Parliament, in which the then Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, National Assembly Speaker Karen Demirchyan and six others were killed.
On 27 October 1999, at around 5:15 p.m., five men led by journalist Nairi Hunanyan, armed with Kalashnikov rifles hidden under long coats, broke into the National Assembly building in Yerevan, while the government was holding a question-and-answer session.
They shot dead eight people, including Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, National Assembly Speaker Karen Demirchyan, Deputy Speakers Yuri Bakhshyan and Ruben Miroyan, Minister of Emergency Situations Leonard Petrosyan, MPs Henrik Abrahamyan, Mikayel Kotanyan and Armenak Armenakyan.
The five perpetrators, including Hunanyan’s younger brother and uncle, were sentenced to life in prison in 2003.
Hunanyan has now applied for parole.
