By Emil Danielyan
Armenian law-enforcement agencies investigating Tuesday’s murder of a former minister for state revenues, Gagik Poghosian, have not yet identified and tracked down its possible perpetrators, Interior Minister Hayk Harutiunian said on Wednesday.
“I can not say anything encouraging at this point as we have no concrete results yet,” Harutiunian said during the government’s weekly question-and-answer session in the parliament. He added that a team of investigators from the interior and national security ministries as well as the prosecutor-general’s office is “actively” working on all plausible theories of the crime.
Poghosian, who was a top aide to Prime Minister Andranik Markarian and headed the government’s oversight department, was killed in a hand grenade explosion in his Yerevan apartment. Police say the grenade was attached to the apartment’s front door and blew up when Poghosian opened it. The blast also left his 19-year-old son seriously wounded.
Markarian suggested on Wednesday that the ex-minister’s death had to do with his “professional activities” but did not elaborate.
According to some press reports, the oversight service launched financial inspections at several government agencies suspected of embezzling and misusing public funds shortly after Poghosian was named to run it in July. Analysts say that he also may have made many enemies among the country’s corporate tax payers during his six-month ministerial spell last year. Poghosian alleged widespread corruption and favoritism in the ministry for state revenues shortly after he was sacked as head of the tax collecting body in October 2000.
Armenian law-enforcement agencies investigating Tuesday’s murder of a former minister for state revenues, Gagik Poghosian, have not yet identified and tracked down its possible perpetrators, Interior Minister Hayk Harutiunian said on Wednesday.
“I can not say anything encouraging at this point as we have no concrete results yet,” Harutiunian said during the government’s weekly question-and-answer session in the parliament. He added that a team of investigators from the interior and national security ministries as well as the prosecutor-general’s office is “actively” working on all plausible theories of the crime.
Poghosian, who was a top aide to Prime Minister Andranik Markarian and headed the government’s oversight department, was killed in a hand grenade explosion in his Yerevan apartment. Police say the grenade was attached to the apartment’s front door and blew up when Poghosian opened it. The blast also left his 19-year-old son seriously wounded.
Markarian suggested on Wednesday that the ex-minister’s death had to do with his “professional activities” but did not elaborate.
According to some press reports, the oversight service launched financial inspections at several government agencies suspected of embezzling and misusing public funds shortly after Poghosian was named to run it in July. Analysts say that he also may have made many enemies among the country’s corporate tax payers during his six-month ministerial spell last year. Poghosian alleged widespread corruption and favoritism in the ministry for state revenues shortly after he was sacked as head of the tax collecting body in October 2000.