Since last year's Presidential Elections, Armenia ain't what it used to be...

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
29 October 2004

Two Men Shot Dead In Downtown Yerevan

By Ruzanna Khachatrian

Two men were shot and killed by unknown assailants in broad daylight in downtown Yerevan on Friday. Circumstances of the extraordinary crime were not immediately known.

The bodies of the men looking to be in their 30s lay stretched on a blood-stained sidewalk near a busy street intersection in the city center late in the afternoon to the horror of passers-by unaccustomed to such scenes. The area was cordoned off by the police.

Investigators at the scene refused to comment on the mysterious killings. The national Police Service said in a statement later in the day that one of the dead men is an ethnic Armenian from Georgia.

The statement said the investigators “have managed to establish the identity of the person who committed the crime” but will refrain from making it public for the time being “for operational considerations.”

The shootings may have been witnessed by staff of a nearby café that were said to have first alerted the police.