All Witnesses in March 1 Case Must Be Under Supervision, Says Andranik Kocharyan

According to Andranik Kocharyan, the chairman of the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Defense and Security, all witnesses in the March 1 case must be under supervision.

“The state must take all key witnesses under protection. They should not face any danger,” Kocharyan said during a briefing with journalists in the National Assembly today.

In reference to the case concerning the death of former police chief Hayk Harutyunyan, Kocharyan noted that he possessed a vast amount of information. “Hayk Harutyunyan was a very crucial witness because he has been the Minister of Internal Affairs and held a tremendous amount of information,” he stated, continuing, “I regret that the defense team of Kocharyan delayed the judicial process with tactical maneuvers to the extent that now we no longer have a key witness. But there are many witnesses, Asgavan Hovsepian—do you remember how he was whispering at the prosecutor’s office while leaving—he must also be protected now. Asgavan Garnikovich was giving a lecture on national security in Artsakh, but I believe that the biggest problem with our national security was created by Asgavan Garnikovich when he was the Prosecutor General, and he played a significant role in these fabrications. If he had properly monitored the unlawful acts of the investigative bodies, we wouldn’t have Hayk Harutyunyan’s body today.”

Turning to the statements made by Arthur Vanetsyan, Andranik Kocharyan mentioned that he has already assessed what the State Security Service should be like and how its leaders should behave. Regarding the statement of Sasun Mikayelyan, a member of the “My Step” faction and president of the AYK, that no one has the right to say that Vanetsyan has thrown his epaulettes in the trash, and Vanetsyan’s call for sobriety, Kocharyan said, “I believe that Sasun Mikayelyan called for sobriety first and foremost for the former head of the NSS because, in essence, a political statement was made by a former official, which he did not have the right to make.”