ArmeniaNow It is already two days that a thus far unseen video of shootings during the 2008 post-election street violence in Yerevan has been on YouTube and also circulating on different online social networks. The video arguably shows horizontal gunshots (rather than shots into the air) made from amongst the law-enforcers gathered around a water canon at the scene of the March 1-2, 2008 clashes.

Andranik Kocharyan, a member of the disbanded fact-finding group probing the 03/08 case (the group was set up on President Serzh Sargsyan’s orders in late 2008, but was dissolved within less than eight months), says that the video material contains much information and that the Special Investigative Service (SIS) should seriously look into it and try to find those who fired the shots.

Still on April 20, President Serzh Sargsyan told top prosecutors and security officials to step up their efforts in investigating the 2008 post-election unrest.

“Try to find new ways of solving those incidents. A lot of time has passed; maybe there are people who were witnesses and didn’t want to cooperate with law-enforcement bodies at the time but have now different approaches,” stressed the president then.

On May 16, the SIS released a statement in which it called on anyone possessing any information or piece of evidence concerning the circumstances of the March 1-2, 2008 events to come forward and help the investigation.

Kocharyan insists that this latest video on YouTube clearly shows one or several police workers releasing aimed fire from their guns.

“If the officer were firing for intimidation purposes, then he should have fired into the air, but after a horizontal shot the bullet may have hit anyone,” says Kocharyan.

The member of the disbanded fact-finding group thinks facts are especially important for the revelation of circumstances of one citizen’s death on that day. The video was shot at the intersection of Leo and Paronyan streets very close to the immediate scene of the clashes. (David Petrosyan, the citizen in question, was killed near the first entrance to the building in 2 Paronyan Street, after being hit in the back with a bullet released from a Makarov pistol).

“Petrosyan was hit in the back. It is very possible that he was killed with such a random, inadvertent shot. Let them reveal whether it had anything to do with that or not. This is what makes this video valuable,” says Kocharyan.