New Details on the March 1 Case

The head of the Anti-Corruption Committee, Arthur Nahapetyan, addressed the National Assembly during hearings regarding the decision made by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on September 18, 2025, concerning the March 1 case and the ongoing preliminary investigation.

"It has been recorded that the deaths during the mass protests in Yerevan in 2008 were the result of the disproportionate use of force by the police. The court also noted that the deaths of four individuals who were shot by firearms were the result of poorly planned and poorly executed operations, during which improper means to control the crowd and disproportionate deadly force were applied. The use of force could be justified under certain circumstances in accordance with the convention, including for the purpose of suppressing riots and rebellions. However, the firing of 1405 units of 5.45 mm rubber bullets, as stated in government documents, to intimidate and disperse protesters was absolutely disproportionate. The use of such indistinct and arbitrarily high lethality weaponry is unacceptable, especially considering the volumes of non-lethal weaponry used, which included only 280 blank cartridges and 191 rubber bullets," he stated.

According to the committee head, it has been established during the preliminary investigation that on the evening of March 1, 2008, units of the RA Armed Forces were already deployed on Leo, Paronyan, and other streets of Yerevan, who used firearms, primarily firing shots into the air, and in some instances, also aimed at the upper floors and roofs of buildings. In order to conceal this fact and exclude the participation of the Armed Forces, officers from the police troops and other units provided directed and materially false testimonies, claiming that they themselves had fired with service weapons.

He noted that soldiers of the Armed Forces who fired with live ammunition have not been interrogated, and their actions have not been evaluated, as the investigation initially attributed the firing to individual servicemen of the police troops, which does not correspond to reality. "In this regard, evidential and procedural actions are being carried out to legally assess the actions of officials involved in the process," he said.