“A sniper opened fire from inside the police station and killed a police officer… who was sitting in a vehicle parked 350-400 metres (yards) away”, police spokesman Ashot Aharonyan wrote on Facebook on Saturday. One of the gunmen locked in a protracted stand-off in a police station in the Armenian capital Yerevan shot an officer dead today, a police spokesman said.
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They have since released all the police but on Wednesday began holding four medical staff who had entered the compound to treat some of their wounds.
The group stormed the building almost two weeks ago seeking the release of “political prisoners” including opposition leader Jirair Sefilian.
The clashes broke out late Friday when several hundred people tried to approach the Yerevan police station, which is cordoned off by security forces and where there have been periodic exchanges of fire. They are demanding freedom for an opposition figure arrested in June.
Sputnik Armenia news agency said as many as 60 people had been injured in the riots and about 40 were still being treated in hospital.
The group has demanded the resignation of President Serzh Sarkisian and Sefilyan’s release and protesters have regularly gathered in the neighbourhood, voicing similar calls.
“We are giving members of the armed group until 5pm (13:00 GMT) to lay down their arms and surrender”, the Armenian national security services said in a statement.
Investigators claim Sefilian’s faction was planning to seize government buildings and communications facilities.
The deadline passed with no immediate action taken.
Sefilyan, an ethnic Armenian who was born in Lebanon and fought during the Arab country’s civil war of the 1980s, has served jail terms since 2006 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government. A senior doctor there told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that a lot of them suffered burns apparently caused by the police flashbangs.
The NSS linked the ultimatum with intensive gunfire which it said the gunmen opened late on Friday at NSS and police units surrounding them.
Police also used stun grenades to drive back the opposition supporters, some of whom threw stones at the rows of riot police blocking their path.
Radio Liberty, a US-funded broadcaster, said police beat some of its journalists with truncheons and damaged their equipment.
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“Out of 73 injured people, 26 are still in hospital, including six policemen”, health ministry spokeswoman Anahit Haytayan wrote on Facebook. The Armenian Human Rights Ombudsman’s office also announced that it would investigate reports that those who attacked the journalists were policemen dressed in plain clothes.
