The Armenian police have a set up a special unit tasked with solving high-profile murders committed in the country in the past decade, police chief Alik Sargsian announced on Wednesday.
“I have formed a special investigating task force that will have to make special efforts to solve murders of great public resonance that have been committed in the republic since 2000 and to periodically report to me,” Sargsian told a news conference. He said it will pay particular attention to last year’s killing one of his deputies, Gevorg Mherian.
Mherian, 33, was shot dead by unknown gunmen just outside his Yerevan apartment in February 2009. Although at least one person was reportedly arrested in connection with the murder in the following months, the case is still being deemed unsolved. Sargsian said last fall that the police are close to identifying all masterminds and perpetrators of the crime.
Sargsian revealed on Wednesday that several persons are currently under arrest on suspicion of involvement in the crime. “Meticulous operational and investigative work is being conducted with them at the moment. Those measures will continue in the next few days,” he said without going into details.
“I will do everything possible and impossible to solve the murder,” the police general added, telling journalists to use the probe as a yardstick for evaluating his track record in office.
“If it’s not solved, we will naturally have to confess that we have failed and that somebody else will get to solve it,” he said. “But rest assured that it will eventually be solved.”