The official, Volodya Grigorian, and a friend of his, off-duty police officer Karen Abrahamian, were gunned down late on September 22 as they stood outside his house in Merdzavan, one of the nine villages making up the community. Law-enforcement authorities claimed to have solved the killing after arresting two local residents in the following days.
According to Armenia’s Investigative Committee, one of the suspects, a 20-year-old man, admitted shooting and killing Grigorian, saying that he avenged the death of his friend Grigor Ohanian.
Ohanian died in February this year in a shootout that occurred outside the Merdzavan house of Mher Akhtoyan, the then village administration chief affiliated with the ruling Civil Contract party. Grigorian’s brother is one of several individuals charged in connection with that killing. He is currently under house arrest, denying any involvement.
Investigators have suggested that the community chief fell victim to a revenge killing. The other suspect arrested by them is Ohanian’s brother Narek. The latter has been charged with “assisting” in the September 22 killing. He denies the accusation.
On Monday, police detained five other Merdzavan residents who they said bitterly argued and clashed in the village. According to other villagers, the violence involved supporters of the slain mayor and Akhtoyan, the former village chief.
It occurred after unknown individuals vandalized the previous night Grigor Ohanian’s grave in a local cemetery. Scores of police officers guarded the cemetery, the entrances to Merdzavan as well as the homes of Grigorian, Akhtoyan and the arrested suspects and patrolled village streets on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, members of the local self-government council met in the nearby village of Parakar to elect a friend of Grigorian as his successor. The new community head, Onik Akhverdian, visibly struggled to hold back tears as he was sworn in during a session of the council shunned by its pro-government members. Akhverdian expressed confidence afterwards that he will manage to ease the lingering tensions in his community.
“If I had any doubts, I wouldn't have taken up this job,” he told journalists.
Together with Grigorian, Akhverdian led an opposition bloc that defeated Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party in a tense local election in March this year. The bloc is dominated by the Yerevan-based opposition party Aprelu Yerkir. Like some relatives of the slain mayor, Aprelu Yerkir leaders have dismissed the official theory of the crime, saying that the investigators have yet to find out who was behind the self-confessed shooter.
Other, more radical opposition figures in Yerevan have openly held Pashinian responsible for Grigorian’s death. They claim that it was made possible by what they see as Pashinian’s crackdown on dissent and impunity enjoyed by his loyalists.
Following Grigorian’s death, the Investigative Committee, the police and two other Armenian law-enforcement agencies sacked their top officials in the Armavir province encompassing the troubled community.