“In the Soviet times in order to torture and kill people the regime used to exile people to Siberia. Now in Armenia in order to kill someone you can send him/her to the court of Gegharkunik region,” says the soldier’s father.
In a previous publication of our newspaper we have informed about the contradicting facts of the death of the state army soldier Tigran Ohanjanyan in the N army headquarter of Karchaxbyur community in Vardenis on August 30, 2007. According to the official information, he was electrocuted while working on a high voltage antenna, but facts show that he had body injuries and definitely was cruelly tortured and beaten up to death as a result of a conflict. “My son was cruelly killed, and the body injury he had on his leg had been done several days before his death, which shows that it was a result of a conflict in the army headquarter,” says Tigran’s father Suren Ohanjanyan. Tigran’s parents are sure of this because the facts are contradicting and they have come to this conclusion as a result of the medical examination of the body and examination of the place and details where it happened. Several days before the death there was an incident in the army headquarter and the criminal case consists of 43 pages, but the defense ministry refuses to provide these papers to the soldier’s father to get acquainted with the details of the incident. S. Ohanjanyan believes that as a result of examining the details of the criminal proceedings he can find a connection between the incident and death of his son.
It is one year that the court of general jurisdiction of Gegharkunik region is proceeding the case of T.Ohanjanyan’s death. Suren Ohanjanyan believes the case was not proceeded in fair conditions and he has submitted numerous complaints to the president, justice minister, defense minister and others but has not received any answers yet. According to the case, the head of the communication department of the N headquarter Rostam Asatryan and junior officer of the same department Karen Tovmasyan are accused in negligence resulting in accident. The soldier’s father assures that the court does not invite the people whose testimonies would be very useful to speak and instead of it they are questioning people whose testimonies are useless. “The criminal investigation of the case was very suspicious and the one to be responsible for that is Gnel Manukyan, prosecutor of Sevan regional body, and his activities contain criminal actions too. Specifically, I don’t understand why he confiscated my son’s clothes, which were torn initially, but he gave these army clothes to the investigation bodies in 56 days in new and good conditions. They have also confiscated some materials and things allegedly connected with the alleged accident, and they have changed several things aimed at failing the opportunity to discover the real reasons causing the death. In other words, they have purposely lost or annihilated the proofs, which would help to discover the crime,” says the soldier’s father and assures that they are delaying the court proceedings for more than one year for the purpose of justifying the fake facts of the criminal proceedings. He says the presiding judge of Gegharkunik court of general jurisdiction Youri Iskoyan is trying to finish the case as soon as possible without a proper examination. The court is denying the petitions of lawyers to invite and question other important witnesses, which means that very soon they will order a verdict justifying the proofs developed by the criminal examination body. “Now imagine that every time to take part in the court session we have to travel to Gegharkunik region from Yerevan, but the problem is not the distance but the poor condition in the court. They are making reforms all the time but still people sitting in the session room are frozen. There was no heating there; there was a small heater near the judge’s table, and that’s all. I am a disabled person, it was cold there and I was in stress and could not breath, we asked the judge to give a break and call an ambulance,” says S. Ohanjanyan and adds that the judge refused to interrupt the session and ordered to continue. The people in the session room made a noise and demanded from the court to call a doctor immediately but again the judge refused. “My wife said that if they did not want to call a doctor at least they could give us a phone number because we did not know any phone number in that region. He told us to leave the room if we could not take part in the session and added that they did not know any numbers. He neither interrupted the court session nor gave us any phone number. Later there was a big scandal; we called the medical services in Yerevan and they told they could not send a car to Sevan, later we got a number and called doctors from the region and they arrived in 40 minutes only,” says S.Ohanjanyan about the inhumane behavior of the judge. After the incident the judge called the doctor to his room, and after a long time they left but failed to make any protocol about this incident. They had to make a protocol. “During the Soviet times in order to kill and torture people they used to send them to Siberia. Now in Armenia it can be done through sending people to the courts of Gegharkunik region, where in conditions of high stress, cold atmosphere and inhumane conduct people can be forced to death.”
S. Ohanjanyan has received a letter informing that the criminal case accusing R.Asatryan and K.Tovmasyan under the article 376/2 of the code has been postponed till December 21. There is a provision in the letter, which is very amazing: “Meanwhile we are informing that the court has transformed to the phase of listening to the conflicts and the last words of the accused persons. We are also informing that according to the article 354/3 of the judicial code the judicial conflicts may consist of the consecutive speeches of the accused person, accusing party or his/her representative and lawyer.” In other words, the court proceedings are up to the end and the real facts leading to discovering the crime without referring to the alleged version of electrocution have not been discovered. Even more, on June 23 the court made a decision on medical expertise, as a result of which the requirements and factors of the previous medical expertise were changed. The suffering party agreed to organize the medical expertise on the body by taking out and examining, with the precondition that the examining ones should be independent experts in order to make sure the proceedings are fair and unbiased. The court refused it too. S. Ohanjanyan does not trust the medical experts from the republican medical expertise center, who will be in charge of that by the demand of the court. “Even they gave an evident wrong conclusion as a result of the medical expertise of the body. They did not write anything about my son’s broken tooth, even one of his front teeth, which had been taken out many years ago, was in the place according to that medical conclusion. They wrote that all the upper teeth were in the place while one of his front teeth had been taken out before he joined the army,” says the soldier’s father. S. Ohanjanyan believes Y.Iskoyan, who is in charge of this case, will refuse all the facts pointing out at the real reasons of the death and crime and will base on another alleged version and as a result will accuse and charge two innocent people who don’t accept the accusation and believe they are not guilty.