Gunmen Storm Armenian Parliament: PM Assassinated

Five gunmen in trench coats entered the Armenian National Assembly chamber in Yerevan on October 27, 1999, during a routine question-and-answer session and opened fire with automatic weapons, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Speaker Karen Demirchyan, and six other government officials in the worst act of political violence in independent Armenia's history. The attack was led by Nairi Hunanyan, a journalist and minor political figure who burst into the chamber shouting "Enough with drinking the blood of our people!" before the group began shooting. Sargsyan, a former defense minister who had led Armenian forces during the Nagorno-Karabakh War in the early 1990s, was hit first. Demirchyan, a Soviet-era politician who had returned to prominence as a reformist, was killed moments later. Deputy speakers Yuri Bakhshyan and Ruben Miroyan and three other parliamentarians also died. Roughly forty lawmakers and staff were taken hostage. President Robert Kocharyan, who was not in the building at the time, arrived at the parliament and negotiated with the gunmen through the night. The standoff ended the following morning when Hunanyan and his accomplices surrendered after being promised a fair trial. The hostages were released unharmed. Hunanyan claimed at trial that the attack was a protest against government corruption and the worsening economic conditions that had impoverished most Armenians since independence in 1991. Prosecutors argued the gunmen had acted on behalf of unnamed political figures seeking to destabilize the government. The question of who, if anyone, ordered the attack has never been definitively answered. Hunanyan and the other attackers were convicted of terrorism and murder and sentenced to life in prison. The massacre decapitated Armenia's political leadership at a critical moment. Sargsyan and Demirchyan had formed a coalition that represented the country's best prospect for political stability and reform. Their deaths left a power vacuum that President Kocharyan filled, concentrating authority in the executive branch and setting Armenia on a path toward the authoritarian governance that would provoke mass protests in 2018. The parliament shooting remains the most traumatic political event in modern Armenian memory.