YEREVAN, MAY 5, NOYAN TAPAN. "The Armenian authorities terrified of the sensational revelations of the fact-finding committee on the March 1 events on May 4 factually suspended committee's activity." Armenian National Congress (ANC) Coordinator Levon Zurabian stated at the May 5 joint press conference with Zharangutiun (Heritage) party Board member Stepan Safarian. S. Safarian said that from May 4 Zharangutiun and ANC representatives involved in the fact-finding committee were prohibited to enter the National Assembly, where the committee acted. According to S. Safarian, near the entrance to the NA the two opposition representatives of the fact-finding committee were told that committee's other three memebers, representatives of the coalition and Ombudsman, have taken leave for an unknown time. L. Zurabian said that leave is only a pretext to suspend fact-finding committee's activity. In his words, the authorities got afraid especially of the committee's revelations regarding the death circumstances of one of the March 1 victims, Police officer Hamlet Tedevosian. L. Zurabian reminded that the facts presented in fact-finding committee's first report published some days ago prove that H. Tadevosian died not from the grenade thrown by demonstrants but from the explosion of the grenade he held in his hand. The ANC Coordinator stressed that Samvel Nikoyan, the Chairman of the NA Ad-hoc Committee on Events Occurred on 1 March and Their Reasons, also had that information, but he did not present it to the public for a whole week. ANC and Zharangutiun made a statement mentioning inadmissibility of stopping the investigation of the 2008 March 1 events. They demand that the authorities not suspend the public investigation of the mentioned events.

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