“Such cases happen in the army: both Russian and American, when the soldiers desert from the military unit with a weapon and commit a murder. But the Gyumri case is unprecedented in its cruelty, since an entire peaceful family was a casualty of a murder,” such opinion was expressed by the former Defense Minister of Armenia, Colonel-General Vagharshak Harutyunyan, in the conversation with Aravot.am. Once, he recalled that in 1972, a soldier deserted from the military unit and killed people in Hoktemberyan. We asked him for more, and Mr. Harutyunyan said, “This case was registered in the Soviet army, when during military exercises, a soldier was involved in the fight at the guard post, it was resolved, but later, he had deserted the guard post with a machine gun and killed people.”
To our clarification of whether this crime was committed by a Russian soldier too, Mr. Harutyunyan replied, “I do not even remember now. Various nationalities were serving in the Soviet army.” To our question of whether it can be concluded that there have always been problems in the Russian army discipline, Mr. Harutyunyan replied, “We cannot make such a conclusion. I take just illustrated an example from our territory, but I can also bring hundreds of examples from American and German armed forces. The Gyumri crime cannot be perceived as a murder on the ethnic grounds: the representative of the Russian military base had killed Armenians. This is our tragedy in common. A large number of Armenian officers and subaltern military officers and contract soldiers serve in the Russian base. Now, are they guilty, too?”
To our question of whether the Russian side had the right to conduct intelligence operations, or whether the Russian border guards had a right to handover Permyakov to the military base, Mr. Harutyunyan replied, “Here, the military base agreement functions, according to which if the offense is committed in the territory of the base, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Russian, and if outside of the territory of the military base, then it falls under the jurisdiction of the Armenian law enforcement. And since a crime has been committed both inside and outside, then the investigation should be conducted jointly. The murder motives cannot be identified, if we do not understand why he had deserted the military unit. There is one problem: the offense must be disclosed and the offender should be punished most severely.”
People’s demand is normal for Mr. Harutyunyan that the offender bears the responsibility by the Armenian legislation, but the fact that the Gyumri incident is used to drive a wedge into the Armenian-Russian relations, according to Mr. Harutyunyan, it’s unacceptable.
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To the question of whether he shared the opinion that the Gyumri people saved the face of RA government authorities who did not even announce mourning and commemoration days, Mr. Harutyunyan replied, “Announcing a Mourning Day was a must, I agree. But what should the government do? The offender was identified in one day, from the very first day the president of Armenia was dealing with this issue, the case is under the direct control of the chief prosecutor and he promised that the perpetrator will be convicted in the Republic of Armenia. What should the government do other than this? Both sides demonstrated serious attitude towards this crime, and it is pointless to escalate the situation ahead of time. If something goes wrong, it is another matter, but the process is still underway. This not only Armenia’s, but also Russia’s tragedy, and the crime should be viewed from this perspective. And the offender should get the maximum punishment deserved.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
