YEREVAN. – The National Assembly (NA) of Armenia commenced Friday’s session with a minute of silence. 

The MPs observed a minute of silence to honor the victims of the tragedy that occurred on this day in 1999, in the parliament.

A group criminals broke into the NA Sessions’ Hall, on October 27, 1999, and shot and killed several government and parliament members.   

This terrorist act took the lives of Prime Minister and Supreme Commander Vazgen Sargsyan, NA Speaker Karen Demirchyan, Vice-Speakers Yuri Bakhshyan and Ruben Miroyan, Operational Affairs Minister Leonard Petrosyan, and MPs Armenak Armenakyan, Henrik Abrahamyan, and Mikayel Kotanyan.

The trial of the terrorists, who committed this crime, was held from 2001 to 2003. As a result, six of them were sentenced to life imprisonment, whereas another one was handed down a fourteen-year prison term.

The court case, however, did not expose the actual persons behind this tragedy, and, as a result, the Armenian society still has considerable doubts regarding the architects of this terrorist act.

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