On October 29 the Department of Public Relations and Information of the RA Ministry of Interior Affairs published a statement in a number of newspapers under the title of "Write the Truth". The statement said in particular that three hours after the incident the law and order bodies received the signal about it from the hospital where the injured man was taken. Several hours later the participants of the incident were discovered – 16-year-old Ashot Ustabashian and two 13-year-old teenagers, one of them being a student of Gegham Nazarian (who teaches geography at school). According to Ustabashian, he asked a passer-by for matches rudely and received an equally rude answer from the latter. During the scuffle, which ensued, Ustabashian pushed the passer-by, who fell down and hit his head at the pavement. "Expressing our regret on the incident, we at the same time think it necessary to note that "Haikakan Zhamanak", as its habit goes, distorted the facts and gave quite a different context to the incident", the statement emphasizes.
The next day, on October 30 "Haikakan Zhamanak" made a response to the statement. In the opinion of the edition, the tone of the statement is quite unsuitable, since "our publication was quite reticent and the statement that followed was nervous". The daily expressed its amazement at the fact that while refuting the publication in "Haikakan Zhamanak", the Interior Ministry proceeded from the narration of an initiator of the assault and not on that of the injured party. The newspaper also informed that the details of the crime as presented in the statement are not valid: the journalist was assaulted by two individuals, and the 13-year-olds mentioned had nothing to do with the incident at all. "The comparison of the facts induces us to assume that the incident is a provocation organized against "Haikakan Zhamanak". And the answer of the Interior Ministry allows to put forth the following hypothesis: apparently, the provocation was prepared by the Ministry of interior Affairs itself (…)", the editorial staff of "Haikakan Zhamanak" claims.
