By Karine Kalantarian
Armenia’s Prosecutor-General has announced that an American expert is expected to arrive in Armenia soon to help with the ongoing investigation into the deadly post-election clashes that left at least eight civilian protesters and two security personnel killed.“A specialist who used to work as a prosecutor in New Jersey will arrive soon. We hope that after getting acquainted with the processes he can give us some advice,” Aghvan Hovsepian said on Friday, adding that the visit of the specialist has been made possible due to assistance of the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan.
U.S. Charge d’Affaires Joseph Pennington, for his part, confirmed that discussions about the involvement of international experts in the investigation of the March 1-2 melee are still ongoing. He also spoke about his discussions with the head of the parliamentary ad hoc committee conducting the probe and hoped that its current efforts would end successfully.
Pennington and Hovsepian met on Friday to sign an agreement whereby the U.S. Government provides an additional assistance worth more than $2 million to the Armenian Government for implementing a number of programs in the country’s legal system.
Hovsepian, in particular, said that the additional funding will contribute to the equipment of the criminal expert laboratory of the National Expertise Bureau with “state-of-the-art technical means”.