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Pashinyan calls the Shaki shooting an ordinary crime and keeps the trial in Armenia

The Azerbaijani serviceman held over the 1 October shooting in Shaki will be tried in Armenia’s courts and, if sentenced to prison, will serve the term in Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan told the National Assembly on Wednesday, calling the incident “an ordinary criminal situation”. Defence Minister Suren Papikyan acknowledged shortcomings over the border crossing and said the man did not resist arrest, which to him shows he was no saboteur.

An open wooden gate in a stone wall at dusk, with a lit lantern over stone steps and a mountain valley beyond.

“When you call the police, you should wait for the police to act. Had they waited for the police to arrive, essentially nothing would have happened,” Pashinyan said in the question hour, answering Arega Hovsepyan on the Shaki resident who defended her children, by Armenpress at 18:57, and he added that the investigation is ongoing and the information may be incomplete. The sentence will be served in Armenia if there is one, and the border’s shortcomings have consequences the minister has not yet named.

To Narek Karapetyan, who played an audio recording and asked whether the man could be handed to Azerbaijan, he answered that a criminal case has been opened, that remand in custody was imposed, and that the matter must be examined within Armenia’s judicial system, by the agency at 20:50. Its future ruling cannot be predetermined, he said, and the case will be examined in accordance with the law.

The sentence will be served in Armenia if there is one, and the border’s shortcomings have consequences the minister has not yet named.

The Prosecutor’s Office opened a public criminal prosecution against Nasimi Rahim oghlu Musayev on 2 October under five articles of the Criminal Code, on illegal crossing of the state border, smuggling and illegal circulation of firearms, violation of the inviolability of a home and causing serious harm to health, by Armenpress’s recap, the offences of part 1 of article 469, part 1 of article 340, part 1 of article 335, part 1 of article 207 and points 4 and 6 of part 2 of article 166, as CAW reported from the prosecutor’s statement on 2 October. By the same recap he entered a house in Shaki at about 14:00 on 1 October, opened fire when discovered, injured a woman born in 1987, fled and was arrested at 15:30 at another address in the settlement.

“Of course, there have been shortcomings, and those shortcomings have had and will have consequences,” Papikyan told parliament at Taron Chakhoyan’s question, by Armenpress at 17:45, saying the full consequences can be spoken of after the internal investigation. The National Security Service was notified by Baku on 29 September that a serviceman had allegedly gone absent without leave, the two sides ran a search, and the shooting came on 1 October, by the same report, which dates the service’s statement to last Thursday.

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