YEREVAN, January 14. /TASS/. A private from the Russian military base in Armenia has been charged with multiple murder, the Armenian Investigative Committee said on Wednesday.

“A decision has been made to indict him on criminal charges,” the IC said.

The special investigations department of Armenia’s Investigative Committee is proceeding with a preliminary probe into the multiple murder and the infliction of heavy bodily injuries in the city of Gyumri on Monday. The investigators suspect that on Monday morning private Valery Permyakov, armed with an automatic rifle, abandoned his post and strayed into the city, where in one of the private homes he gunned down six members of the Avetisian family. One of those killed was a two-year-old child. The sole survivor — a six-month-old baby who had suffered grave bayonet wounds in the chest — was taken to hospital and operated on. At the moment the baby has been taken to a hospital in the Armenian capital Yerevan. The child’s condition is grave.

On the crime scene the attacker left his footwear with tags carrying his name, his automatic rifle and unspent cartridges. The following night Permyakov tried to cross the border into neighbouring Turkey to have been detained by Russian border guards, who guard the Armenian border under a bilateral agreement.