Two of the arrested opposition gunmen, who were wounded during last month’s standoff with Armenian law-enforcement authorities, underwent fresh surgeries in a Yerevan hospital on Tuesday.
Aram Manukian and Ashot Petrosian were among 31 members of an armed group that seized a police station in Yerevan on July 17, killing at least two police officers and wounding and taking hostage several others. They as well as seven other gunmen were wounded in the leg and captured by security forces before the rest of the group laid down its arms on July 31.
The attackers demanded President Serzh Sarkisian’s resignation and the release of Zhirayr Sefilian, the jailed leader of Founding Parliament, a radical opposition group with which they are affiliated.
The wounded gunmen were operated on at Yerevan’s Erebuni Medical Center immediately after their capture. Virtually all of them required follow-up operations because of the gravity of their bone fractures.
The Erebuni administration said that surgeons succeeded in fully repairing Manukian’s and Petrosian’s broken bones and that none of them will have any disability as a result of their gunshot wounds. Both men will be sent back to a prison hospital in the Armenian capital later this week.
The wounded gunmen’s lawyers have repeatedly complained about what they see as poor sanitary conditions at that hospital. They insist that their clients be allowed to remain at Erebuni until their full recovery.
Three other wounded gunmen are due to undergo fresh surgeries in the coming days. They include Manukian’s father Pavel, who was one of the two leaders of the armed group that carried out the deadly attack.