Terminated activities in Fact-Finding Group
Statement of the Armenian National Congress and the "Heritage" party
"On May 4 members of the Fact-Finding Group Vahe Stepanyan, Robert Avagyan and Gevorg Tovmasyan have temporarily terminated their activities in the Fact-Finding Group without presenting a balanced substantiation and by violating the working order constituted by the charter regulating the work of the Fact-Finding Group.
We express our concerns and have serious grounds to state that this step was taken under pressure of the authorities. Our conviction is grounded by the fact that the above mentioned members of the Fact-Finding Group took this step after the group sent the results of its first studies on the circumstances of Hamlet Tadevosyan's death to the parliamentary committee leading an investigation into the events of March 1 and published them in the media.
The temporary termination of the revelation of circumstances for the murders of March 1 is unacceptable and cannot be morally or politically justifiable because the Fact-Finding Group is responsible for revealing the truth to the relatives of the victim and the society at once.
We condemn the authorities' attempts to terminate the work of the Fact-finding Group, especially at a time when the first results of the group's work were officially being seen. We demand the authorities to put an end to all obstacles standing in the way of the Fact-Finding Group and take necessary measures to restart the group's work at once," as stated in the statement.
Let us remind that Vahe Stepanyan was head of the group and was nominated by the RA Ombudsman.
Lawyers Robert Avagyan and Gevorg Tovmasyan represented the ruling coalition. The "Heritage" party and the Armenian National Congress were represented by Seda Safaryan and Andranik Kocharyan respectively
