Treating ammunition
Twenty-three year old Armen Puluzyan from the city of Edjmiadzin was arrested in May of this year, however, he can’t prove that he is innocent neither at the Edjmiadzin police department nor the first instance court of the Armavir Marz. It all started like this: resident of the Zvartnots district of Edjmiadzin Mayis Avetisyan had a large property which he used for cattle-raising. Mayis was one of the soldiers that fought in the Karabagh war; he has been part of the “Tigran Mets” team from 1990-1992. Arsen Mkrtchyan, who is a minor, has worked in his cattle-raising farm.
While working in the farm, 16 year old Arsen has noticed some weapons behind the wall of the basement. Arsen has told some people about Mayis’s hidden weapons. Later on, he has taken those weapons secretly and given them out to his acquaintances, including the accused Armen Puluzyan, Hayk Khachatryan and Vahan Markaryan. Armen Puluzyan, who heard about those weapons, gave Arsen 8,000 drams, an old cellular phone and suggested bringing him weapons in exchange for that. Armen’s brother Karen Puluzyan claims that this is how it really happened, however, head of the criminal division of the police department Laert Grigoryan and persecutor Petros Boyadjyan have mixed up the facts. Elder investigator of the Edjmiadzin persecution P. Boyadjyan has concluded that Armen Puluzyan is being accused of mixing minor Arsen Mkrtchyan in all this in July-August 2005 after the agreement made with Hayk Khachatryan beforehand. He has also put a lot of burdens on Arsen which have been dangerous to his health and life and during that period he has even injured Mkrtchyan with a knife, threatened him and forced him to get weapons from Mayis Avetisyan and give it to him.
A. Mkrtchyan has robbed a total of 6 automatic guns and 140 cartridges of 7.62 mm in diameter and has handed them over to Armen Puluzyan and Hayk Khachatryan. Armen Puluzyan is being accused based on the 4th subtext of the 165th article of the Criminal Code of Armenia (including a minor in a crime) and the 2nd point of the 4th subtext of articles 38-238 (robbing weapons or ammunition). As for the other accused- Vahan Margaryan and Hayk Khachatryan- the accusation states that Arsen Mkrtchyan has handed in the two automatic guns to them. Vahan Margaryan is being accused based on the 4th subtext of the 165th article of the Criminal Code of Armenia and the 1st and 3rd points of the 3rd subtext of articles 38-238. Hayk Khachatryan, on the other hand, has escaped and is being persecuted. As for Armen’s brother Karen Puluzyan, who has gone against the “false” accusations, tells a different story: “Arsen had noticed Mayis’s hidden weapons, took them and gave them to others. After that, he has personally offered them to my brother Armen. Arsen gave two automatic guns to my brother and got an old, used cell phone in exchange and 8,000 drams. My parents and I did not know that Armen had weapons in the house. Mayis’s brother came to our house by coincidence and told us that my brother Armen keeps weapons in his house. When I asked Armen if that was true, he ran away from me and said that he had hidden the weapons on the roof. We found one automatic gun on the roof, gave it to Mayis’s brother and as far as I know, he gave it to the Edjmiadzin branch of the National Security Service (NSS).” Karen says that Armen was afraid and ran away to his aunt’s house, however, his family members knew about his whereabouts 10 days later.
“Hakob Hakobyan promised”
As a means of taking precautions, Karen called National Assembly deputy Hakob Hakobyan as soon as he found the 2nd automatic gun and consulted with him on what to do so that they wouldn’t have any problems with the police when they handed in the guns. H. Hakobyan suggested turning the gun in to the police and promised that there would be no problems. They turned the gun in, but the investigator warned that he might call Armen to the police department again. They call Armen a couple of days later, however, they call him with the purpose of arresting him. “They did not let him come home after that,” says Karen, “they kept him for five days at the police department. During the course of those five days, they forced him by beating to give a false testimony that he had forced Arsen to steal the weapons; that he had not agreed, Armen had threatened him and cut his arms with a knife. In a word, he turned the minor into a criminal. Armen resisted after being beaten severely and has not given a false testimony, claiming that Arsen has offered him weapons and he has taken them.” Karen says that when he went to visit his brother, he told Karen that when Hakob Hakobyan was at the police department, the investigator gave him a document and persuaded him to have Armen sign it. Armen refused to sign and the investigator said: “We are going to release you. See, Hakob Hakobyan has even come here to release you. Everything is fine, we have talked it out. Sign it and we will let you go.” As a side note, Karen says that Armen does not have middle school education and can’t read due to his illness. Armen believed in the words of the investigator and signed, but then found out that he had signed a paper that accused him of the crime. Armen told his brother that the investigator had cheated him.
Forcing the minor to give a false testimony
Armen’s relatives say that 23 year-old Armen Puluzyan got a brain tumor when he was 3 years old. He regained his consciousness after three days of being under the supervision of doctors, however, that had a huge impact on his life. The doctors at the Nork psychiatric center informed the family that Armen had brain defects from early childhood due to the tumor. After long treatment at the psychiatric center, they categorized him as 2nd category handicapped. Karen panics because the police are not even giving his brother a tranquilizer to calm down. He says: “Armen lives on those drugs. Without those drugs, he doesn’t realize what he is doing and he can endanger his life. There have been similar cases when he doesn’t drink his medicine and loses unconsciousness. We always take him to get treatment so that he can come back to his senses just a little. I noticed that his neck had become crooked when I went to see him in jail and it was trembling. He had asked the police for medicine and they had not given it to him. He will not last longer like that. True, he is sick, but he has never been capable of committing a crime. He is an honest man.” As we stated, the accusation claims that Armen had injured Arsen with a knife, but Arsen’s father said in court and at the police department that there were no signs of cuts on his son’s body and that accusation doesn’t explain what really happened. Arsen’s father Gevorg Mkrtchyan has appealed to all the instance courts and has claimed that Armen Puluzyan has not threatened his son, has not injured him in any way and has not motivated him to commit crime. One of the appeals is with us where Grigor, Mayis’s brother, denies the investigator’s accusation saying that it doesn’t correspond to what really happened. Karen Puluzyan says: “The investigators are just scaring Arsen. His father and the neighbors testify that the investigators are meeting with the family from morning to night so that Arsen himself says whether or not Armen has stabbed him with a knife. They are scaring the boy.”
Denying the crime?
The most interesting thing here is that a criminal act has not been brought up against Mayis Avetisyan for hiding weapons. The 235th article of the Criminal Code states: “Procuring, using, keeping, exchanging and/or taking along illegal weapons, ammunition, explosives is punished for a maximum of three month arrest, or a three year imprisonment or taking a large amount from the salary.” According to Karen Puluzyan, Mayis Avetisyan not only has not been brought to justice, but also the police have not even confiscated his hidden weapons. Armen’s father-Vahagn Puluzyan who has been one of the first soldiers in the “Independence Army”, claims that Mayis Avetisyan’s brother Grigor has gone to Lachin in 1992. When some of the men fighting died, the soldiers fighting with Grigor had taken the victims from the border while Grigor had taken the weapons and brought them to Edjmiadzin all by himself. “You can check all this information at the commissary. We fought together and I know everything,” says Vahagn Puluzyan, “there are a lot of hidden weapons. At the time, Grigor was declaring that he has gone into the weapon storage room. Those weapons belong to Grigor, not his brother Mayis.” Although Puluzyan claims that there is a large number of hidden weapons in Mayis’s farm, however, Boyadjyan’s accusation states only 7 automatic guns, 1 regimental, 140 cartridges and one optic instrument.