The event took place in the middle of the afternoon, at around 3:30 p.m., when police officers made their way into the VLDU building to arrest one of the members. The member of the VLDU building and one of the former soldiers, whose name none of the members know, had apparently gone into the administrative building of the union and asked for help because the police officers wanted to arrest him.
The reasons for this scandal are various. According to one of them, which is almost close to the real thing, the soldier and an average citizen were debating and the debate later turned into a fight. Police officers had started to stop the two and as a result, the soldier started debating with the police officers. When the police tried to arrest him, the soldier went inside the VLDU administrative building and asked for help from his friends.
According to another version, days before the event, police officers had attacked one of the VLDU members who, in turn, had cut one of the police officers with a knife and escaped. The police had followed up on the former soldier and when the latter had entered the VLDU building, they had tried to arrest him. But the VLDU administrative staff had prohibited the police to arrest their soldier friend and asked them to wait outside until the given person came out of the building.
“They tried to arrest our soldier friend in the VLDU building where the mothers and sisters of most of our soldiers work. That’s why we called them outside so they could do whatever they had to do outside and not in the building,” said vice president of the VLDU Ara Ketikyan during an interview. Of course, calling the police out of the building was the cause for the riot. But when the soldier tried to hide in the computer room, the police broke the door to get inside and get him out of there. One thing led to another and before they knew it, not only did they see a large group of VLDU land defending soldiers from different regions, but also president of the VLDU administrative staff, deputy defense minister of Armenia, general/lieutenant Manvel Grigoryan. Head of the Yerevan police division Nerses Nazaryan and the chief administrator of the Criminal Investigation department and general Hayk Militonyan also came to the VLDU. Of course, Militonyan left in the middle of the negotiations and the negotiations lasted until late night. In the end, the police weren’t able to arrest the soldier. According to vice president of the VLDU administration Ara Ketikyan, what happened was a misunderstanding, which soon became clear. What’s interesting is that the land defenders didn’t really know the person who was being persecuted. But since he was a former soldier, they felt that it was their duty to protect him.
“It didn’t matter if we knew him or not. Just the fact that he was one of us was enough reason for us to help him out,” said members of VLDU. There were still dozens of soldiers gathered at the VLDU today. It’s interesting that the Armenian police deny all this. When “168 Hours” asked the news and public relations department of the police department for information yesterday, they said that they would give all the information, but they are currently waiting to check with the “authorities”. After checking with the “authorities”, the police have sent this message:
“In regard to the information published in the press about an event that took place between the land defenders and police, we inform you that nothing has happened at all.”