Kamo Mnatsakanyan Testifies Against Oganyan While in Hiding

There is already no doubt that the main objective of the article published by the Russian service of the BBC, which discusses the post-election events in Armenia in 2008 and the events of March 1, is to discredit and undermine the authority of the Artsakh war hero, General Samvel Karapetyan (“Oganyan”). This is being pursued at any cost, thereby attempting to create a certain tension between the two Armenian entities—Armenia and Artsakh. This was reported by Pastinfo.am.

The article mentions, “As part of the investigation regarding the theory that a group brought from Karabakh fired on the March 1 protesters, the Special Investigative Service has been working on this for a year, and in this context, the search for ‘witnesses’ yielded ‘results’ in the summer of 2018.” The result, however, must be taken with a grain of salt, as a resident of Askeran with a criminal past, Kamo Mnatsakanyan, who is currently wanted, appeared as a witness. He was never a soldier and was not in Yerevan during the March events, yet he willingly provided testimony about what he ‘heard.’ Interestingly, K. Mnatsakanyan, who testified against the war hero Oganyan, is known to be an associate of Samvel Babayan, with the nickname “the swindler.”

It remains unclear how someone who is wanted managed to appear at the Special Investigative Service in Yerevan upon his arrival. But it should be noted that the interrogation took place on July 7, 2018, lasted two hours, and the testimony was written by the investigator without asking any questions to the witness. It is worth noting that we are not talking about a supplementary interrogation of the witness, but rather for the first time, and the investigator did not even clarify any biographical information. After the testimony given against the hero, no further questions arose.

As for what K. Mnatsakanyan testified, it seems to align with information that surfaced a year later in an international media outlet. “Regarding the events that took place in Yerevan on March 1 and 2, 2018, I can report the following: I was not in Yerevan during the mentioned events; I was in Artsakh. After the mentioned events, I became interested in who from Karabakh had gone to Yerevan and participated in those events... After the events of March 1, there were people who immediately became wealthy and are still living well to this day. From conversations, I learned the names of people who participated in those events. Among them is my friend, now deceased, the son of Rubik from the village of Jrapi in the Martuni region, Kamo.” According to the witness, he was serving as a contract soldier in the Artsakh Defense Army during that period and left the army after the events of March 2008.

Referring to what he ‘heard,’ Kamo Mnatsakanyan provided testimony saying that 1,500 soldiers were transferred to Yerevan under the command of Oganyan; he also recalled that they allegedly were provided military uniforms while still in Artsakh. He asserted that 20 of them were singled out for shooting at the people, while the remaining 1,500 fired into the air. Notably, among those 20 was the Kamo he mentioned.

With such testimony, the investigator had no further questions; he merely acted as a scribe, and the witness remembered certain things during the process and filled in the gaps himself. He didn’t even ask, “Well, who supposedly told you all this?” nor questioned whether those involved in the ‘enrichment’ were the same people he mentioned, whether he personally fired, and if so, why the Special Investigative Service did not place charges against him.

The series of questions could continue indefinitely, but when reviewing the testimony, it was simply glaringly obvious that there had been a prior arrangement; the investigator didn’t even pose a token question about why he decided to testify now.... It would also be interesting to check the footage from the security cameras of the Special Investigative Service to confirm whether the witness really stayed there for two hours or not.

It should be noted that this testimony conflicts with many other pieces of evidence involving military personnel, which will be addressed later. There is no doubt that the tragic events of March 1 require a multi-faceted and objective investigation: who and why organized the disturbances, who were the looters and arsonists in the stores, and who is responsible for each of the ten deaths. However, there are no visible results in this direction, and moreover, the investigation is being convoluted to the point that subsequent clarifications become practically impossible. The dubious circumstances surrounding the questionable testimony provided by a person known for his flawed past and behavior in Artsakh raise suspicions that it serves political and ulterior motives. Especially when this occurs at a time when the investigation is clearly failing to substantiate the hypothesis initiated a year ago on a legal basis. All of this proves that under the guise of so-called legal processes, entirely different issues are being resolved, which has indeed become a matter of national security.

For more details, refer to the original news source.