Armenia questions opposition activists over hostage crisis
YEREVAN: Armenian police questioned dozens of political activists Monday after an armed group with links to the opposition seized a police building in Yerevan and took hostages, demanding the president's resignation.
The activists "were all released after questioning," a police spokesman told AFP on Monday as the hostage crisis entered its second day in the small ex-Soviet Caucasus country.
Early on Sunday a group of men with links to jailed opposition leader Zhirair Sefilyan seized a police building in Yerevan and took hostages, demanding President Serzh Sarkisian's resignation.
Five hostages were still being held on Monday, Armenia's national security service said, while two hostages were freed overnight and one was released on Sunday.
"Law enforcement agencies are doing everything possible to secure the situation's peaceful resolution," the security service said in a statement.
The hostages include Armenia's deputy police chief General Major Vardan Egiazaryan and Yerevan deputy police chief Colonel Valeri Osipyan.
The attackers said they were demanding the release of Sefilyan who was arrested last month for alleged possession of firearms and was previously accused of plotting a violent overthrow of the government.
Sefilyan, the leader of small opposition group the New Armenia Public Salvation Front, and six of his supporters were arrested in June after authorities said they were preparing a plot to seize government buildings and telecommunication facilities in Yerevan.
A fierce critic of the government, Sefilyan was arrested in 2006 over calls for "a violent overthrow of the government" and jailed for 18 months. He was released in 2008.
Last year, Sefilyan and several of his supporters were arrested again on suspicion of preparing a coup, but released shortly afterwards.
Sarkisian, a former military officer, has been president of the tiny country of 2.9 million people since winning a vote in 2008 that saw bloody clashes between police and supporters of the defeated opposition candidate in which 10 people died. — AFP