Sasna Tsrer stops resisting and surrenders to police

Varuzhan Avetisyan, a member of Sasna Tsrer armed group that sieged a police station in Yerevan has announced he “sees accomplished the mission to raise a nationwide riot.” Besides, he said that the group intends to stop resisting the police and surrenders to the Armenian government as “prisoners of war.”

According to him, the members of the group will continue fighting from jail. “We shall lay down arms at 08:00 p.m. and surrender to the authorities in order to prevent from further bloodshed,” he said.

As Avetisyan noted, the police and other special services have made a massive attack at their positions by using military hardware, drones and snipers. According to him, the territory controlled by the attackers was shelled by 40 snipers.

“In this situation, we had two options. Either to fight that could result in many casualties on both sides. Or to surrender and become prisoners of war, because they would not treat us as political prisoners,” Avetisyan said.

“It is a very hard decision. But we could not sacrifice lives of guys who are like we,” he explained, adding that police officers who were raiding the building were not to blame as they had to do so due to instructions of their bosses.