Recently the Office of Public Prosecutor of Shirak region brought charges against Spartak Ghukasyan, son of Gyumri mayor Vardan Ghukasyan, as well as Rustam Sargsyan and Telman Karapetyan under Articles 34-104 Chapter 2, Point 1, 6 and 7, Article 235 Chapter 1 and Article 258 Chapter 4 of the Criminal Code of Armenia. The three young men are wanted for the shooting on May 20 at the intersection of Teryan and Ghukasyan streets, a crowded part of the city. The “war” of the sons ignited from the political controversies between their fathers; the mayor is a Republican, Rustam Sargsyan’s father is a member of the Prosperous Armenia Party. On May 20, at 6 o’clock in the evening, Rustam Sargsyan had an argument with Norayr Soloyan at the Metelitsa bar and restaurant he owns. They argued for 10 minutes, after which they went out to the courtyard where Rustam Sargsyan shot twice at Norayr Soloyan’s legs with his illegally owned gun. Soloyan was injured in the right leg and left the place. Later, at half past seven in the evening, at the intersection of Teryan and Ghukasyan Streets in Gyumri, Telman Karapetyan and Rustam Sargsyan in his land cruiser and Spartak Ghukasyan and two other people in his H2 shot at each other but nobody got killed. Hamaspyur Mnatsakanyan, a passer-by, was injured in the right hand, and the walls and windows of the surrounding houses were damaged. The two machine guns and two revolvers used by Robert Sargsyan and Telman Karapetyan were confiscated. By the way, Hamaspyur Mnatsakanyan is not the first person who suffered from the battles of the “golden” youth. Besides her, a child has been missing since the day of the shooting, and many think the child got killed, and the body was buried somewhere. Besides, in speaking about his son’s recent “exploit”, Vardan Ghukasyan said Spartak was defending his friend’s honor. Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General officially confirmed reports that the gunfight involved two groups of young men led by Spartak Ghukasyan and Rustam Sargsyan, son of a prominent local businessman. It said police have been instructed to take “all necessary measures” to find and arrest both men already charged under relevant articles of the Armenian Criminal Code. The investigators also questioned Mayor Ghukasyan in connection with the incident. In a televised interview broadcast earlier this week, he vehemently denied his son’s involvement. He also accused the media and his rivals of discrediting his family, which is widely linked with other instances of violence reported in Gyumri in recent years. There were suggestions that the latest shootout may have also been politically motivated, as the fugitive Sargsyan’s father is a local leader of the pro-presidential Prosperous Armenia Party, one of the RPA’s main rivals in the May 12 parliamentary elections. But according to the prosecutors, the shootout was sparked by a violent dispute between Sargsyan and a friend of Spartak Ghukasyan’s that broke out in a Gyumri restaurant earlier on Sunday. Truzyan said the man, Norayr Soloyan, picked a fight with Sargsyan before being shot and wounded in the leg. Soloyan was taken to a Gyumri hospital and is being treated there under police guard. A statement by the prosecutors said he will be arrested and prosecuted after recovering from the wound. Truzyan insisted that only one person, an elderly woman, suffered a minor injury in the shootout itself, when a stray bullet hit her in the arm. She also said the investigators see no link between the incident and the disappearance of a 12-year-boy in Gyumri on Sunday. The boy, identified as Robert Simonyan, reportedly went missing at around the same time.
P.S. It’s hard to tell why the prosecutor’s office decided to the addition of its original statement, because as you mentioned in the revised version the situation turned out to be totally different. By the way, on that same day, the sources of the 168-Zham newspaper told us the colleagues of Spartak Ghukasyan splashed beer on Sargsyan, after which the shooting started.