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Yerevan / AFP
An armed Armenian group with links to a jailed opposition leader seized a police building in Yerevan on Sunday, killing one policemen and taking several more hostage, including top officers.
One of the gunman said they were demanding the resignation of President Serzh Sarkisian and the release of political prisoners but the country’s security services dismissed rumours on social media that a coup was under way.
“A group of armed men entered the premises of a police regiment in Yerevan and is holding hostages under the threat of violence,” Armenia’s National Security Service said in a statement. “One policeman was killed and two others wounded. Two hostages were freed,” it said.
One of the gunmen said on social media that the hostages in the police station in Yerevan’s Erebuni district included the country’s deputy police chief.
Nikol Pashinyan, a lawmaker who met the hostage-takers, told journalists that the group had taken eight police hostage but released one who was suffering from high blood pressure.
“The Armenian state continues to operate normally, police carry out their duties to protect public order and security,” the security service said, dismissing the coup rumours.
Media reports said the group was demanding the release of Zhirair Sefilyan, an opposition politician who was arrested last month for alleged possession of firearms.
“We demand the release of Zhirair Sefilyan, we will only obey his orders. Sarkisian must resign,” one of the group members, Varuzhan Avetisyan, wrote on Facebook.
‘Take to the streets’
He said two top police officers, Armenia’s deputy police chief General Major Vardan Egiazaryan and Yerevan deputy police chief Colonel Valeri Osipyan, were being held.
One of the gunmen, named as Tatul Tamrazyan, has been seriously wounded, Avetisyan wrote.
The group later released a video on Facebook, calling on Armenians to take to the streets against the government.
The video showed several men in flak jackets and armed with Kalashnikovs as well as several hostages being held inside the police building.
“We are doing this for you. People, take to the streets!” one of the gunmen, Areg Kuregyan said in the video. “We demand the release of all political prisoners.”
“Join us! For now, we are holding the positions. We will stand as long as we can,” another gunman said in the video statement.
Military and police cordons were blocking streets around the Erebuni station on Sunday afternoon with vehicles including an armoured personnel vehicle.
Sefilyan, the leader of a small opposition group, the New Armenia Public Salvation Front, and six of his supporters were arrested in June after the authorities said they were preparing a plot to seize several government buildings and telecommunication facilities in Yerevan.