On Thursday Anahit Bakhshyan, Deputy from “Heritage” parliamentary faction, stayed in the Prosecutor General’s Office for 5 and a half hours, where she watched the video materials of March 1 incidents in a slow mode including the CD, which their faction has sent to the Prosecutor’s Office. After that she denied rumors that the car ran over several demonstrators near the French embassy in Yerevan.
As reported by Sona Trouzyan, Press Secretary of the General Prosecutor’s Office, Anahit Bakhshyan admitted during the interrogation that no running-down accident had occurred. Trouzyan said the prosecutor general ordered to make a careful investigation into the allegations. As part of the investigation Anahit Bakhshyan was summoned yesterday for questioning by a special unit of prosecutors as a witness. Trouzyan said during the interrogation in the presence of her lawyer, the CD was carefully examined following which the parliament member accepted that the car did not run over the demonstrators. "The police car moved with a high speed through the people, but no one was hurt. I saw it with my own eyes," she was quoted as saying. “We didn’t watch the video materials in a slow mode. When you watch them in the regular mode, it seems that someone falls down from the left side of the car passing through the crowd. Especially when the eye-witnesses said that there had been a running-down accident. But when we watched the film in a slow mode, I even requested that our video-material be brought from the office because I had certain doubts. It seemed to me that I had seen the car hit a civilian, and after watching the film once I made sure that no running-down accident had occurred as that person managed to step aside,” A. Bakhshyan said. Back on March 19, the Prosecutor’s Office received a letter from Anahit Bakhshyan saying that on March 1 the police car had run down some of the participants of the demonstration. Together with the letter, the MP also sent a video disk which allegedly confirmed the fact of the running-down accident. The Prosecutor General took action on the case in a manner prescribed by law; the material was sent to the Special Investigative Service for verification. During the interrogation Anahit Bakshyan told about what she had witnessed on March 1, 2008, which if investigated impartially, would reveal the cause of the indignation of people and hurt dignity of the citizens. In particular, Ms. Bakshyan wanted to tell that before the police car drove across the crowd, the police had attacked the peaceful protestors without being provoked, which was the continuation of the police crackdown on the peaceful citizens early in the morning at the Square of Freedom, which was the cause of indignation of the citizens gathered in front of the statue of Miasnikyan, runs the release of the Heritage Party. “Yes, I went there and we watched the video in a slow mode. We have thoroughly discussed all the points raised in my open letter. We watched not only my video but also the video that they had. We watched those from different angles. During the interrogation I got convinced that the car didn’t hit anyone. I mean the video. I don’t know how but the video doesn’t show any run-down,” said Bakhshyan during his conversation with us. However after watching what the police showed her Bakhshyan claimed to go and get their own CD. “They did and I watched our video and I apologized to them. What’s wrong with that? We waited for 40 minutes till they went to our office to get our copy. We watched that in a slow mode as well. When you watch like that everything becomes clear. When you watch in a normal mode it seems that the vehicle is running down people. We haven’t thought of watching our copy in a slow mode. The slow mode shows that the man walks back but doesn’t fall under the car. They were saying that the vehicle hit a woman, who fainted, hit a man… It turned out that the woman felt bad of something else and as of the man the police told me that no man was hit. We asked all these questions to the prosecutor general but now we are saying thank God that there was no vehicle run-down,” said the Heritage MP and added that someone has suffered during that period. To our question why the police vehicle moved to the direction of the people she said, “The people were attacking the police in front of the Municipality. They were beating the police and the police had to get in their vehicles to drive away in order to protect themselves. Why would they move that way and not another?” asks Bakhshyan. According to the MP when during the questioning she asked why in that case people were running away from that car the investigator asked her the opposite question, “She showed me segments and asked me. Is that the police that attack people or people attacking the policemen and their vehicles? I told them that I am seeing people, who are furious and lost in dignity and deeply insulted. And not only. Prior to that they showed me segments how people were beating the policemen. They were asking me who these people were. I was telling them the same. We had the wrong picture of the scene of the events. After the careful watch of the video we realized that people were cruelly beating the policemen. The latter could hardly run away and what they did was only self-defense. I have seen that too. It turned out that the people are beating the policemen and the latter don’t have any other chance but to protect themselves. So they had to get in the car and drive away. But I asked them another question, such as where were the policemen with clubs, shields and bars, who were in the vicinity to come and fix the disorder? Why would it be MP Armen Martirosyan to protect the policeman? They told me they don’t wish to speak about that. They didn’t answer any of my consequential questions. They wouldn’t answer why people were so offended and furious.”