In a basement cell with a barred and screened window, where heavy air
smothers breathing, 19-year old prisoner Razmik Sargsyan is in his 28th
day of hunger strike to protest the sentence for a crime he now says he
had no part in.
In April of last year, following five days of interrogation, during
which the teenager says he was tortured, Sargsyan, a conscript in the
Armenian army confessed to the murder of two fellow soldiers in
Karabakh in December of 2003. Two other soldiers were also convicted
based on Sargsyan’s confession.
Each was sentenced to 15 years.
Attorneys and family members of all the convicted soldiers have claimed
that Sargsyan and the others were scapegoats in a double murder that,
they say, points fingers to unit commander Ivan Grigoryan. Grigoryan
was not called to testify in the case, due, in part, to his status as a
Karabakh war hero(this was mentioned in the letter addressed to the
investigation body by the Defense Minister of Karabakh Seiran Ohanyan).
The case is one of several examples of unsatisfactory conditions within
the Armenian Army, where soldiers are routinely beaten (the murder
victims are believed to have been tortured, then murdered), often with
the approval or out right command of superior officers.
It is also a case that has drawn attention from human rights agencies
and Non Governmental Organizations who say, that Sargsyan is just
another victim of bottom-to-top corruption that prevails in the
military.
Sargsyan’s case is under appeal, but a prison doctor has determined, that his health is too bad for him to attend the hearings.
According to his attorney, Zaruhi Postanjyan, Sargsyan cannot walk, and
suffers severe kidney problems that, the attorney says, are the result
of numerous beatings. The apparent kidney damage makes a hunger strike
particularly dangerous for the boy. As a matter of fact, his
conditiondramatically deteriorated within two weeks of the strike.
Members of an NGO observation group making a public supervision in
prisons, consider his health condition as complicated. The group was
denied a request to view Sargsyan’s medical records by the head of the
Nubarashen prison, Ara Sargsyan.
Although press secretary of the Ministry of Justice Ara Saghatelyan
insists they would get the information in case a proper request was
presented, the lawyers claim that the two written medications have been
rejected.
On the fifth day of his strike, Sargsyan announced it to the Court of
Appeals. Judge Mher Arghmanyan replied: “Only guilty people do things
like hunger strikes . . .”
On a visit to the Nubarashen prison, ArmeniaNow’s reporter found the
boy pale, gaunt and barely capable of speaking. He is demanding that
those who he says tortured him be charged with their crimes, and that
the Military Prosecutor be dismissed from the case, and a civilian
prosecutor from the Prosecutor General’s Office be assigned.
“I have been innocently sentenced for 15 years, and evidence has been
extorted by beatings,” he told ArmeniaNow “How can I not participate in
the hunger strike? I have no other way.”
“Razmik Sargsyan made this ultimate step for he does not know what
steps to take to prove his innocence and to bring the real criminals to
justice,” Postanjyan says. “Besides the fact the real criminals are
free, they have also included innocent people into the case.”
Neither Musa Serobyan nor Araik Zalyan, the other soldiers, confessed to the same charges raised against Sargsyan.
Postanjayan says the Military Prosecutor’s Office made its case solely
on Sargsyan’s allegedly-extorted testimony. She describes her client as
a sensitive boy, liable to yield to pressure.
“They purposefully chose Razmik, for he is more vulnerable, writes
poems and loves music, so he would not stand the beatings. And indeed
he did not. The investigator had hanged him up and threatened to rape
him with a stick… Razmik has testified to all these in the court of the
first instance,” says the lawyer.
During the year and a half of their imprisonment all the three
prisoners have declared hunger strikes at different times. The longest
was Zalyan’s, lasting 90 days.
Due to his already poor health, Sargsyan’s hold out appears more dramatic.
Following a recent visit to the prison, Torgom Sargsyan said his son
could not walk and “his face was totally swollen, his hands were
shaking, he could hardly move his lips. He has had acute kidney attacks
again; he urinates blood.
“They took my child to the army for two years, and it turned into 15 . . .”
P.S. On Saturday the juridical organizations and lawyers
organized a press-conference, where they announced about founding a
public body for protecting the rights of these boys. We will inform
about the further actions in the future.