Their reform-minded coalition had won a majority in a parliamentary election held in May of that year and had practically sidelined President Robert Kocharyan from the political scene.

[7] On 27 October 1999, at around 5:15 p.m.,[8][9] five men led by journalist Nairi Hunanyan,[10] armed with Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles hidden under long coats,[11][8] broke into the National Assembly Building in Yerevan, while the government was holding a question-and-answer session.

[18] Anna Israelyan, a journalist who witnessed the incident, stated that "the first shots were fired directly at Vazgen Sargsyan at a distance of one to two meters" and, in her words, "it was impossible that he would have survived.

[11] The investigation was led by Gagik Jhangiryan, the Chief Military Prosecutor of Armenia, who claimed his team was looking for the masterminds of the shooting even after the trial had begun.

[41] Conspiracy theories immediately flourished that the gunmen had been acting on orders to sabotage a Karabakh peace deal, but a decade on, the available evidence still pointed to the leading gunman being a loner with a grudge against the Armenian political elite.

[43] Former U.S. ambassador to Armenia Marie Yovanovitch suggested in Lessons From the Edge: A Memoir that the disagreements over Nagorno-Karabakh policy had "played a large role in the shooting.

[37] Armenia's first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan has repeatedly "accused Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan and their 'criminal-oligarchic' system of being the real perpetrators of the parliament shooting."

He claimed the judicial process of October 27 "deepened the public distrust in the authorities" as "many questions remain unanswered today" According to Aram Sargsyan, the disclosure of the shooting is "vital" for Armenia.

By physically eliminating Karen Demirchyan and Vazgen Sargsyan, its organizers wanted to create prerequisites for Kocharyan's victory in the future presidential elections.

"[50] In late April 2005, in an interview to an Azerbaijani newspaper Realniy Azerbaijan, the former Russian secret service agent Alexander Litvinenko accused the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of having organised the Armenian parliament shooting, ostensibly to derail the peace process which would have resolved the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but he offered no evidence to support the accusation.

The NSS spokesman Artsvin Baghramyan stated "not a single fact or even a hint relating to Litvinenko's theory emerged during the trial."

"[40] On October 27, 2012, the French-based Armenian political refugee and former Apostolic priest Artsruni Avetisysan (also known by his religious name Ter Girgor) gave an interview to A1plus, in which he claimed that the Russian secret services had been behind the shooting.

He insisted the shooting was assisted by the Russian secret services in order to bring the "Neo-Bolshevik criminal clan" of Serzh Sargsyan and Robert Kocharyan into power.

[56] Ashot Manucharyan, one of the leading members of the Karabakh Committee, the former Minister of Internal Affairs and Levon Ter-Petrosyan's National Security Adviser and his close ally until 1993, without presenting any proof and having access to secret services, stated in October 2000 that Armenian officials were warned by a foreign country about the shootings.

Ashot Manucharyan stated in 2000 that he is much worried about the circumstance that "a number of Dashnaktsutyun party leaders are acting in the interest of the American foreign policy.

"[57] Armenian-American journalist Garin Hovannisian described the aftermath of the attack as follows:[59] For weeks the Armenians mourned in silence, but from their grief a startling theory began to evolve.

The fact was that Prime Minister Sargsyan and Speaker Demirchyan had recently created in parliament an alliance for democratic reform, and they were only men who commanded the resources and popularity to challenge the president one day.

Of course, there was no actual evidence that Robert Kocharyan was complicit in this monstrous crime against the Armenian people, but it was clear that he emerged from the bloodbath with absolute power.From early June to late October 1999, the political system in Armenia was based on the Demirchyan-Sargsyan tandem, which controlled the military, the legislative and the executive branches.

[64] Kocharyan remained highly unpopular in Armenia, as a poll in August 2002 showed at least three other politicians (Stepan Demirchyan, Artashes Geghamyan, Levon Ter-Petrosyan) having more support than him.