YEREVAN -- Former Armenian police chief Hayk Harutiunian has been found dead in his house in Yerevan with a gunshot wound to his head.
Police officials told RFE/RL on September 24 that Harutiunian's body was found in his house late the night before and that a preliminary investigation suggested suicide.
Harutiunian served as police chief from 2003 to 2008 and headed Armenia's penitentiary service from 2010 to 2014.
He was a witness in the case against former President Robert Kocharian.
The charges against Kocharian and three other former senior officials relate to a March 2008 decision to call in troops following clashes that left at least 10 people, including law enforcement officers, dead in the worst civil violence in that country's post-Soviet history.
Since being arrested in July 2018, Kocharian has twice been released from pretrial detention by court decisions, but in both cases he was rearrested after prosecutor appeals.
