Members of far-right group detained after attacking police station in Armenia
- 25 March, 11:00
Armenian national security forces detained three men for attacking a police station in capital Yerevan with a hand grenade.
The assailants attempted to break into the Nor Nork Police Department in Yerevan on Sunday. Two of the gunmen had been wounded when hand grenades they were detonating and were rushed to hospital. The third assailant was detained by police officers.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee launched an investigation against the three assailants on charges of terrorism. The committee stated a third suspect was arrested based on ‘reasonable suspicion that he apparently committed the crime’.
There have been no official reports about the motives behind the attack. The Russian media reported on Sunday that the assailants might belong to the Combat Brotherhood organization, around 50 members of which had been detained earlier in the day. However, the Combat Brotherhood denied its involvement in the attack. Meanwhile, later on Sunday, media outlets affiliated with Armenian nationalist party Sasna Tsrer claimed the three gunmen were members of the party. On Monday, the National-Democratic Alliance, a far-right group affiliated with members of Sasna Tsrer, claimed responsibility for the attack. The Interior Ministry confirmed the group was involved in the attack. Earlier that day the National-Democratic Alliance had reported that police conducted searches in apartments belonging to their supporters earlier that day.
The group published names and photographs of the attackers alongside the demands that the group was making. The demands put forward by the group include the dismissal of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for “betraying” Armenia and what the group described as handing over Armenian lands to neighbouring Azerbaijan.
It should be noted that Sasna Tsrer affiliated with the National-Democratic Alliance broke into a police station in Yerevan in 2016, killing a police officer and taking several others hostage. The group demanded the resignation of former president Serzh Sargsyan and the immediate cessation of any potential talks about the handover of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.
