Legal proceedings have been launched over the recent incident in the military base called Yeghnikner on December 14. According to the spokeswoman of the defense ministry’s investigation department Mary Sargsyan, on December 14 the head of the kitchen department of N army basement of NKR Armen Tovmasyan met resistance on part of a soldier to do his order and hit with his hand and a chain in his hand a soldier named Narek Avetisyan, as a result of which the eye of the soldier was seriously injured. The investigation department of the NKR defense ministry has instituted legal proceedings under the article 375 of the Criminal Code.
Narek Avetisyan is in Yerevan clinic after Malayan. The head of the clinic’s vascular unit has told the Radio Liberty that the soldier had been taken to their hospital with deep injury of eye and there could be no hope for recovering that eye from the very beginning because the injury was deep. “It was a very deep injury and there could be no word about recovering his eyesight because all the content of the eye had fallen down from the eye socket. All the organs that were useful for eyesight had fallen down of the eye socket,” said the doctor. N. Avetisyan was drafted to the army in May. The soldier’s father told the radio liberty that somebody had injured his son’s eye with a metallic keychain. “He was at the borderline for service and when he went down to the army unit they took him to the kitchen immediately. The chief of the kitchen told him to do something, he did not do, and the chief of the kitchen hit his eye with a metallic chain and broke everything down. Now my son cannot see; he is disabled now. His name is Armen Tovmasyan. My son did not even imagine that he would hit him like that. He did it from behind and the place of the chain is noticeable on his face,” said the soldier’s father. He says nobody from the army headquarter or the military police has called them or visited the hospital. “It is the third day we are in the hospital and nobody has visited us from the military police. They would come immediately if my son would leave the army headquarter for at least ten minutes. I have information that the officer that hit my son is free in the army headquarter. Is he that brave that can do such thing and be free?” said N.Avetisyan’s father. During these days the friends of the officer and people from the army headquarter are calling the soldier and asking to forgive, but the soldier’s father has told the “We will not keep silence” Facebook initiative group members that “this is not something that can be forgiven.”