At the opposition’s rally on July 4 former president Levon Ter- Patrosyan called on the human rights defender Armen Harutyunyan and the head of the NA standing commission on state and legal affairs Davit Harutyunyan to give a legal estimation of the Special investigation service (SIS) chief Andranik Mirzoyan’s order to the prosecutor of Vayots Dzor region, which had been published by the first president during a press conference on July 1.
Yesterday the human rights defender gave a press conference, where he said that the mentioned order was illegal. According to him, such “investigative order” cannot be assigned to the prosecutor because there is no provision in the criminal code providing that the mentioned official can ask or submit such petition to the prosecutor. It is the vice versa; in our country prosecutors are the ones who should supervise the work of investigators. “The addressee shall be exclusively either the pre- investigation or the investigation bodies. Even though in the second part of the document it is written “I am asking”, it cannot be viewed as he is asking the prosecutor, which is proven by the headline and last sentence of the mentioned document,” said Armen Harutyunyan.
To note, according to the mentioned order A. Mirzoyan instructed the prosecutor of Vayots Dzor region to conduct secondary investigation of the activities of all campaign managers of Levon Ter- Petrosyan, find out their phone numbers, properties, question their neighbors and relatives, as well as the drivers of those vehicles who bused people to rallies, and also find out what people were speaking during that time. The ombudsman also wanders whether the chief of the Special investigation service has instructed such orders to the prosecutors of other regions as well. Yesterday we talked to the spokesperson of the SIS chief by phone. The latter informed us that such instructions with the same content have been assigned to other prosecutors as well. “During the investigation process of the case under the consideration of the SIS prosecutors of different marzes have been given certain orders,” said Mr. Kostanyan but did not clarify specifically the prosecutors of which regions had been given such instructions. Armen Harutyunyan says that the orders given to policemen, the collected facts, instituted legal cases and the cases submitted to the court resulting from the order of the SIS chief cannot be considered as legal. “It is at minimum nonsense to include such question in the order asking whether the participants of the rallies realized that such rallies could comply with the interests of other states… In addition, Mirzoyan should not instruct the prosecutors to find out the incoming and outgoing call numbers of Levon Ter- Petrosyan’s campaign managers. Such petition cannot be viewed as fulfillment of investigative work, and cannot be assigned to anyone. Furthermore, the court is authorized to require additional materials, which cannot be provided by those who are instructed to do that job. This means that we are dealing not with an investigative order but with an order to conduct overall investigation, which suggests to implement investigation, court proceedings, come up with a petition at the court with the purpose of getting a permit to conduct legal proceedings, as well as organize operative- investigative operations,” says Armen Harutyunyan. Accordingly, Armen Harutyunyan pledges that Mr. Mirzoyan has made the prosecutor of Vayots Dzor region to violate a number of articles of the criminal code. “Our legislation does not know what the delegated investigation is, which drifts from the established court proceedings,” said the ombudsman and added that he would send a written letter to Mr. Mirzoyan and the prosecutor of Vayots Dzor to get the answers to his questions.
Armen Harutyunyan also discussed issues concerning application of arrest as means of punishment and prolonging terms of arrest. He has found out that in most cases resulted from the March 1 event the courts adopted decisions to arrest people as means of punishment and mostly have done that basing on the petitions of the relevant investigative bodies and relied on their facts but not on the facts submitted by lawyers, which, according to the ombudsman, is dispatch from the European principles. He says that the petitions submitted to the courts by the investigation bodies were not a specific description of cases but a general description of situation, which had almost the same content in all petitions. In this context the human rights defender also suspects that the decisions to prolong the terms of arrest of Alexander Arzumanyan, Gagik Jhangiryan, MP Hakob Hakobyan, Myasnik Malkhasyan and Sasun Mikayelyan were groundless.
Several days ago the human rights defender applied to the head of the national security services and asked protection guards and service cars for him and his family. In answer to that letter the chief of the NSS Gorik Hakobyan asked to present additional information about the potential danger. “I have not applied to them based on any facts, thus I can’t submit any facts. If the NSS think that the human rights defender is protected, that’s fine, and if they think that we should submit additional facts to them, that’s fine too. The law clearly writes that based on the ombudsman’s written letter the state and corresponding bodies shall undertake actions,” said Armen Harutyunyan concerning the NSS chief’s answer. By the way, the latter has accepted the suggestion to cooperate with the NA ad hoc commission on investigating the events of March 1. The commission in turn accepted the ombudsman’s suggestion to start the investigation works from the events that took place in the morning on March 1. Armen Harutyunyan says that as he cannot participate in the works of the commission for 3- 4 hours every week, he will send his representative Arman Khachatryan to participate in the works of the commission, and if needed he will participate in it himself. Answering to a question whether the ombudsman will not feel alone without the opposition Armen Harutyunyan said, “I feel fine and when taking actions I did not rely on the possibility whether the opposition will participate or no. Besides that, I am not going to give estimations either to the opposition or the government. However I believe that if the entire political sector was represented in that commission all of us would benefit from it.” He also says that many questions concerning the events of March 1 should be given an appropriate answer. “For example, I wander why the activities of journalists were prevented on March 1. If they took the events on camera we could see what really happened there. If everything was fine why did they take the recordings from journalists?” said the ombudsman and added that if the cooperation did not bring to positive results he would cease his participation in it.
He also spoke about the fact that former deputy prosecutor general Gagik Jhangiryan has sued the order of former president Robert Kocharyan to dismiss him from the official position and invalidate his rank. Armen Harutyunyan says that he does not have enough information about that case but he believes that Jhangiryan’s rank should not be invalidated in such a way. Journalists asked the ombudsman also to comment on the fact that Vahram Sahakyan appeared in the North Avenue being drunk and terrorized people with a gun and also the fact that the police of Kentron community have not instituted legal proceedings in connection with that fact reasoning that people should come to the police and testimony that they have suffered. “If the people who have suffered don’t go to the police and provide information, the police cannot work effectively, however the police should not rely on suffered persons only,” said the ombudsman. By the way, journalist also asked the human rights defender whether he had participated in the wedding party of prosecutor general Aghvan Hovsepyan’s son one week before. The ombudsman said that he had received an invitation but hadn’t participated in the party.