“Whether or not it was an armed group, the investigator made that decision. He went to court, received authorization, and carried out the operation,” State Revenue Committee chairman Davit Ananyan told reporters after the recent government session upon being asked about how an armed group of 40-50 people from the SRC went to the Arinj Mall to carry out examinations. According to Ananyan, in order to carry out the operation, experts discussed how many people would be necessary for it. “If it had been decided that we needed to send 1,000 people, we would have sent them.”
The examinations at the Arinj Mall were unplanned, and were not even marked on the calendar. They were simply carried out at the discretion of the investigator, Davit Ananyan clarified. Reporters asked if the SRC received any information from these examinations, which Ananyan confirmed. “As a result of operations that have been carried out both by representatives of the SRC and of other structures over the past 7 months, we have gathered information, and the investigator used that information as a basis to go to court. The court approved the intermediation for a search. This is a strictly legal process.”
