25 March 2024
Three men armed with hand grenades have been arrested and charged with terrorism for attempting to break into a police station in Yerevan, throwing a hand grenade at the entrance.
The three men attempted to break into the Nor Nork Police Department in Yerevan on Sunday.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that they had ‘threatened to blow up the station with hand grenades’, and that one of them, identified only by his initials, threw a grenade at the entrance of the police station.
No police officers were harmed by the explosion, but two of the suspects sustained injuries to their legs and were hospitalised after the incident. The Ministry of Health told RFE/RL that their conditions were moderate.
The third suspect was apprehended after almost two hours of negotiations with the police and officers of the National Security Service. The police found four grenades on his person.
On the same day, Armenia’s Investigative Committee launched an investigation against the three men on charges of terrorism. The committee stated third suspect was arrested based on ‘reasonable suspicion that he apparently committed the crime’.
The Armenian authorities have yet to disclose the motive behind the attack.
The Interior Ministry’s spokesperson, Narek Sargsyan, told reporters that the third suspect’s demands were ‘various’ and ‘unintelligible’.
Later that day, media outlets affiliated with the ruling party claimed that the three suspects were affiliated with Sasna Tsrer, a group that took control of a police station in Yerevan in 2016, killing a police officer and taking several others hostage.
At the time, Sasna Tsrer demanded the resignation of former president Serzh Sargsyan and the immediate cessation of any potential talks about the handover of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.
On Monday morning, the National-Democratic Alliance, a far-right group affiliated with members of Sasna Tsrer, stated that the police had conducted searches in apartments belonging to their supporters earlier that day.
Later the same day, the group took responsibility for the attack, with the Interior Ministry spokesperson also confirming that the attackers appeared to be members of the Alliance.
The National-Democratic Alliance published names and photographs of the attackers alongside the demands that the group was making.
The demands, which quoted one of the attackers as per a video recording of the attack, called for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to be ‘removed’ from his post for ‘betraying’ Armenia.
‘He betrayed my nation, my people, the independence of Armenia, and brought the Armenian nation to a catastrophic state’, the post stated. ‘Lands are handed over one by one, guys like us are arrested. We must fight, not let the Turk's yatağan [sword] enter.’
This article was updated on 25 March, after the National-Democratic Alliance claimed responsibility for the attack.
