He made the remarks Thursday at a press conference dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Sumgayit events, AzVision.az reports.  

According to the investigator, in January-February 1988 – before the unrests in Sumgayit, 84 depositors of Armenian origin extracted deposits in the amount of 143,064 rubles from 14 savings accounts.

“It became clear that during those months numerous telephone conversations with Armenia were conducted from the post offices of the city, and money transfers were made,” he said.

The investigation also revealed that one of the active participants of the events committed in Sumgayit on February 27-29, 1988, was an Armenian resident of Sumgayit, repeatedly convicted Eduard Grigoryan, the senior investigator noted.

“Eduard Grigoryan, having gathered people around himself, attacked the houses of Armenian residents of Sumgayit, under the slogans “Death to Armenians”, “Follow me”, etc. In their testimonies during the investigation, the victims (Lyudmila and Karina Mejlumyan sisters, Manvel Petrosyan and others), who were subjected to violence and torture, said that the attacks on their houses were led by Eduard Grigoryan.”

“The investigation revealed one more interesting fact. After being convicted for the murder and rape of Armenian residents of Sumgayit on December 22, 1989, Grigoryan was transferred to the remand prison No. 1 in Yerevan on August 26, 1991. The question arises: why Grigoryan was handed over to Armenia?” he said.

The investigator went on to say: “It also became clear that most of the Armenians residing in Sumgayit transferred money to the “Krunk” organization. The majority of the Armenians who suffered in Sumgayit were those who refused to transfer money to“Krunk” organization, operating in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region.  The criminal gang attacked the houses of Armenians living on the upper floors, not entering the houses of the Armenian residents on the first floor of the building. It turned out later that owners of houses that were not attacked were the ones who regularly transferred money to the “Krunk” organization.”  

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