The Chief Investigation Department of RA Police has filed a criminal case concerning Samvel Shaboyan, director of Armenia’s Khosrov woodland reserve.

Police report that in the early hours of Thursday morning, November 19, an unknown brand car with non-identified license plate numbers caught up with Shaboyan’s office-provided SUV Toyota Prado and opened a round of machine gunfire. The bullets hit Shaboyan who was in the backseat killing him. The investigation revealed 30 bullet holes in the car. The police grade the case as premeditated murder.

A few hours after the murder, Karen Petrosyan, resident of Goravan village (Ararat province), was detained by the police. Petrosyan is known to the law enforcers as the nephew of Marzpetuni Petrosyan, lord of the underworld killed on June 20 of 2009 by Shaboyan’s brother, Pertchik Shaboyan.

However, there is another theory in circulation, according to which Shabyan was killed because of his professional activities. Head of Armenia’s Union of Greens Hakob Sanasaryan, for example, does not exclude that the crime motive could have been “the trace of the poaching mafia”.

“All of us dealing with ecological issues of the country are targets for those who dislike our activities,” Sanasaryan told ArmeniaNow.

The Khosrov forest reserve covers 150 sq. kilometers of land on the slope of Gegham mountain range. The reserve attracts poachers because of its bezoar goats and moufflons registered in the Red Book as endangered species.