The results of the observations carried out by Peace Dialogue NGO regarding the fatalities in the Armenian and NK Armed Forces in the first three months of 2016.

In the mentioned period, 16 death cases were recorded, 8 death cases in Armenia and 8 death cases in NK.

3 soldiers died as a result of a ceasefire regime violation:

1. Aramayis Voskanyan (January 9, NK )
2. Simon Chavrshyan (February 5, NK )
3. Artyom Varderesyan (March 17, NK)

5 soldiers committed suicide:

1. Davit Terteryan (February 18, NK)
2. Temur Sloyan (February 19, NK)

Temur Sloyan and Kamo Hovhannisyan died in the same incident.

On February 19, 2016 at approximately 6:50 a.m. private soldier T. Sloyan who was the machine-gunner of the 3rd squad at N military unit, in the combat post of the same unit shot the commander of the same squad, junior Sergeant Kamo Hovhannisyan in the face. K. Hovhannisyan died right there after which private Sloyan shot himself in his head.

Considering that in the prepared documents it is obvious that there is sufficient data indicating attributes of crime envisaged by Article 104 part 1 of the Criminal Code and Article 110, Part 1 of the RA Criminal Code, the Second Garrison Investigative Department initiated a criminal case.

http://www.investigative.am…

1. Sargis Ohanyan (March 11, NK)
2. Kamo Martirosyan (March 14, RA)
3. Mesrop Ghurshudyan (March 29, RA)

2 murder cases:

1. Kamo Hovhannisyan (February 19, NK)
2. Hovhannes Haroutyunian(March 17, NK)

A criminal case was initiated in regards to Hovhannes Haroutyunyan’s death and his co-serviceman was charged. Haroutyunyan received a fatal gunshot wound in the head in a combat post. Based on the evidence obtained private soldier was charged under Article 104, Part 2, point 10 of the RA Criminal Code (murder out of hooliganism). The investigator filed a petition to the court to have arrest as a restrains measure and the petition was sustained. http://www.investigative.am…

1 died in unknown circumstances:

1. Sevak Hambardzumyan (24 March , RA)

1 soldier was electrocuted. A criminal case was initiated under article “Negligent attitude to military service that negligently caused grave consequences”:

1. Sargis Manukyan (March 30, RA)

4  soldiers died as a result of fatal incidents:

1. Karen Karapetyan (March 9 RA)
2. Vahan Ghukasyan (March 9, RA)
3. Ruslan Harutyunyan (March 9 , RA)
4. Arsen Hovsepyan (March 23, RA )

The website and database

www.safesoldiers.am

has been updated with information provided to Peace Dialogue NGO by private individuals, and NGOs along with information from public media. With this update, the website database now lists a total of 810 fatalities recorded in the Armenian and Nagorno-Karabakh armed forces since 1994 (currently the complete database is available at the Armenian version of the website).

For the period 2010-2014 the information can be considered with some exceptions, as the most complete in the database, since the public media more actively and continuously covered fatalities in the armed forces during this period than it has been in previous times. Even the number of recent fatalities is different in different sources. It is more difficult to find information about the losses in the 90s when there was a relatively peaceful situation.

The database therefore is still a work in progress particularly since the Ministry of Defense and other authorities constantly refuse to provide information to the organization regarding these tragic incidents. Moreover, in a court hearing presided over by Judge Arman Dilanyan on March 11, 2016 the Administrative Court of Armenia decided to reject Peace Dialogue NGO’s complaint challenging the legitimacy of the classification of secret information mentioned in Section 17, Point 42 and 43 in the list provided by Executive Order N9 of the Ministry of Defense, dated July 9, 2015, and to partially annul the executive order.

Based on the information in the database, of the 810 fatalities, the greatest number of cases 208, are cases of murder. Peace Dialogue has already recorded several cases of data manipulation, such as fatal incidents, or murders in combat presented as murders by the enemy, or murders presented as suicides, etc, however one categorizes them, the number of murder cases in the website is the highest.

Incidents are recorded in the database guided by official reports however, the descriptions of the cases also include findings which question the official report, such as the opinions and the testimonies of relatives, as well as information provided by certain media outlets, watchdog groups or other experts.

172 cases are the results of fatal incidents, 174 cases are the result of ceasefire violations, 83 cases are the result of health issues and 90 cases are recorded as suicides.

Out of 810 cases, 298 were recorded in Nagorno-Karabakh, while 339 were recorded in Armenia. The organization has not been able to find out the exact location for 173 of the incidents. (See here)

Based on the data collected so far, the organization has attempted to map the geographical distribution of the cases. Based on the map, most cases in Armenia were recorded in the Tavush region (96). Those fatalities recorded in NK were recorded in the Martakert region (109). The regions with higher concentration of murder cases are Syunik (61), Hadrut (60), Martuni (50) and Gegharkunik (43).

The greatest number of cases which resulted in death was recorded in the 2000 (77 cases). It should be taken into account that the organization does not have complete data for the year 2000. In the year 2015 there was only one case less (76). During the first three months of this year, 16 cases have been registered.

Armenia sets out its reform plans and timelines in its Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), which is jointly agreed for a two-year period. Armenia’s IPAP is geared towards strengthening political dialogue between NATO and Armenia and to supporting Armenia’s democratic and defense reforms.

Individual partnership action plan 2014-2016

On February 11 and March 10, 2016 another two court hearings were held regarding the case of temporary soldier Manuchar Manucharyan’s suicide (according to the official hypothesis) case. The victim’s legal representative in court was “Peace Dialogue” NGO’s expert and criminalist Ruben Martirosyan. Hereby we present his review of the most important details of the two court hearings.

During the court hearing on February 11 both the aggrieved party and the defendant petitioned the court to summon and interrogate a witness central in the case captain Arthur Abrahamyan, the one who took responsibility for the security guard on the day of the incident and who was deliberately not included in the list of summoned people by the preliminary investigative body.

At court the captain was supposed to answer very important and significant questions regarding the case. The aggrieved party’s argument was that, according to the law, he was supposed to be prosecuted under at least three articles: abuse of power, official forgery and official inaction. As the victim’s legal representative claimed the captain reportedly was at the crime scene when Manuchar Manucharyan was killed. According to another report, he was drunk from early in the morning that day. The aggrieved party does not exclude the possibility that he was the one who killed Manuchar.

“Throughout the trial, Judge Mkrtchyan who was following the prosecutor’s instructions rejected, without any valid explanation, the appeal to invite Abrahamyan as a witness,.”– R. Martirosyan said. The parties also petitioned for summoning the co-author of #228/14 expert opinion forensic psychologist Elda Green.

It was based on her opinion that the preliminary investigative body qualified the case as a suicide. A quote from the aforementioned expert opinion says: “…the suicide was driven by A. Stepanyan’s and B.Gaboyan’s illegal actions”.

This conclusion does not inspire confidence among the parties for the following reasons: it is based on just one person’s, Libik Mkrtchyan’s false testimony. This testimony was revealed in court to have been made under some pressure when Mkrtchyan changed his testimony. Moreover, the other witnesses besides Mkrtchyan mentioned that on the day of the incident M. Manucharyan was in good mood. Another witness Hovhannes Mikaelyan even testified that about an hour prior the incident he was telling jokes with Manuchar in the combat post.

Meanwhile the forensic psychologist completely ignored the testimonies of this witness and wrote that allegedly M. Manucharyan was desperate and confused, feeling hopeless and stressed “…which considerably effected his consciousness and behavior.”

“This conclusion is ungrounded since during the military service M. Manucharyan has never been in such a desperate state: his elder brother who was serving at Vazgen Sargsyan military academy in Yerevan said that he was always in contact with him, was aware of all the details of his brother’s service and if necessary he was ready to help and support him at any time.”- mentioned the representative of the victim’s successor.

It was necessary to summon the forensic expert also because in her conclusion she brings out forensic terms, such as “asocial suicide” or “affective suicide”, which require professional clarification.

It is a common practice that the experts are summoned to court to testify in matters such as this.

The Judge and the prosecutor Amiryan were against inviting forensic psychologist Elda Green to court and that is how the court decision was made despite persistent demands and petitions of the parties.

For a long time, even during the previous court hearings the aggrieved party appealed to be provided with 13 laser disks attached to computer conclusion number 13-2459 of the expert, which include the video recordings of 13 security cameras of military unit depicting the day of the murder and the day before it (July 30-31)

They would allow the aggrieved party to prove that M. Manucharyan was murdered since the videos recorded the guard tower No. 5 and the surrounding area. Moreover, after presenting these videos, the prosecutor, based on the content on them, perhaps would be able to prove that the claims of the aggrieved party that M. Manucharyan was murdered were not true.

The presiding Judge A. Mkrtchyan even announced before that the aggrieved party had nothing to worry about and promised to provide the videos. During the court hearing on February 11, 2015 prosecutor Amiryan showed the disks, at the same time announcing that he could not provide the aggrieved party with the copy of the disks.

Together with the disks he also brought a letter, which most probably was an answer to his inquiry to the commander of the military unit. According to which the unit commander was saying: “The command of the military unit is against the providing the afore mentioned videos to any individual since the video content includes elements of daily schedule and deployment of military facilities in the unit, as well as other information containing military secrets.”

The aggrieved party insists that the letter was written at the order of prosecutor Amiryan and his superiors. It should also be noted that the aggrieved party is not simply an individual but a legal entity. It was clear to the aggrieved party, even months before the hearing that the disks would not be provided to them because it was an intentional homicide and the video recordings would clearly show who the murderers were and the truth would have been revealed. A suggestion was made to sign an agreement that the videos wouldn’t be published, however the Judge was trying by all means to persuade the parties to watch the videos during the hearings. Taking into consideration that the recording had 221 hours of footage and each court hearing lasts only three hours, it would mean that the recordings were to be shown during 73 court hearings.

It should also be noted that the court hearings are held approximately once a month, thus according to the Judge’s suggestions, it would take 6 years of judicial process just to watch the footage.

The successor of the victim mentioned in the very beginning of the hearing that it was a murder: in the report prepared by the investigator regarding the examination of the deceased soldier’s clothes it is mentioned that on M. Manucharyan’s right rear pant leg, a 5mm diameter round hole, the edges of which have traces of burn. However, this information was not mentioned in the expert opinion.

The described mark is very similar to a gunshot wound fired from 5.45mm caliber rifle. If during the previous court hearings in response to this announcement the Judge was stating that it was simply an assumption, during this trial an appeal was made and the package of the clothes was opened and the mentioned trace was shown to the court. This implies that the expert(s) carried out an official fabrication not referring to this hole. The logical continuation of all this were the appeals:

1. To send the mentioned trousers to an expert in another expert center
2. To summon the authors of the examination report number

The court decided to summon the criminalist expert M. Haroutyunyan, however during the trial on March 10 it turned out that for some reason the Judge, abusing his official position, without agreeing to the parties secretly summoned ballistic expert A. Hambardzumyan.

In response to R. Martirosyan’s complaint that it was a falsification and the Judge violated his own decision, the Judge answered: “…Hambardzumyan will give a comprehensive answer to all your questions, you will see.” This implies that the presiding judge had already had a meeting with the experts, received comprehensive answers and was assuming that everyone would also become convinced.

Each questioning contains a preparatory phase and the parties should thoroughly prepare for it. The parties were prepared to question a person, however absolutely different person shows up as a witness. The complaints did not give any satisfactory result.

The second proposal was made to the court saying that the parties need to prepare for questioning and that at least 15 minutes should be provided to the parties to prepare to question the ballistic expert and recall what notes he had made in his expert report, the Judge announced that the representative of the victim’s successor was impeding the normal course of the trial and warned that in case such actions continue, he would be punished and asked to leave the court room.

The forensic ballistic expert’s testimony only showed that he did not examine M. Manucharyan’s trousers to find gunshot wounds, again for some ‘unknown reasons.’

Despite this fact, the court denied the motion to engage another ballistic expertise. Then he did not allow a motion to have his own decision of inviting the forensic expert realized. Regarding the laser disks, on February 11, 2016 a decision was made to send an inquiry to the Ministry of Defense to find out whether the disks contained official secret information or not. During the court hearing on March 10, 2016 the Judge announced that no answer was received from the Ministry of Defense yet.

In a court hearing presided over by Judge Arman Dilanyan on March 11, 2016 the Administrative Court of Armenia decided to reject Peace Dialogue NGO’s complaint challenging the legitimacy of the classification of secret information mentioned in Section 17, Point 42 and 43 in the list provided by Executive Order N9 of the Ministry of Defense, dated July 9, 2015, and to partially annul the executive order.

According to the court, “assessment of the emergency incidents and the accidents in the armed forces and the short descriptions revealing the causes of these incidents, as well as the information disclosing the official investigation materials prepared based on the illegalities that were the result of such incidents are not included in the restrictions of the listing of information as state and official secrets specified in Article 10 of the RA Law on ‘State and Official secrets ‘.”

At the same time, taking into consideration the (military) nature of the information mentioned in Section 42 and 43 that the executive order refers to and the nature of this information, the Court found that in the present military and political situation this information may include details, the disclosure of which, may present threats to the security of the Republic of Armenia.  The decision of the Administrative Court can be appealed to the RA Court of Appeal within one month after its publication.

Peace Dialogue NGO strongly disagrees with the Court ruling (for example it is not clear how the Armenia’s safety can be jeopardized) and intends to appeal the verdict.

According to lawyer for the case Mushegh Shushanyan by issuing the executive order N9 dated July 9, 2015, as well as the provisions that were challenged in the complaint, the RA Ministry of Defense; 1) exceeded its powers, particularly by including in the mentioned extended list the information that is not listed in the exhaustive list of state and official secrets provided by Article 9 of the RA Law on State and Official Secret and thus 2) the Minister usurped the legislative power, since by including in the extended list the information that is not provided by the exhaustive list of state and official secrets he provided a basis for a restriction of a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution (this may be prescribed only by law).

After examining the verdict of the Administrative Court lawyer Mushegh Shoushanyan concludes that such a Court is a threat to the security of the Republic of Armenia itself.

“The court decision not only flagrantly violates and ignores the principles of the Constitution and the international treaties and laws, but this simply “raped” the very essence of the fundamental principle of the rule of law.

In such circumstances, there is no basis for saying that the Court made such a decision and acted as a “Court” since the term “court” should denote to not only the body of judicial authority (in formal sense the courts of totalitarian /authoritarian states are also bodies of judicial authority) but a procedure for administration of justice guaranteed by the state law and the universally recognized principles of international law.

This at least requires to respect the state’s own Constitution and ensure that the rights of ordinary people are protected from the arbitrariness of state bodies and / or their officials. The existence of such Court is indeed a threat to the security of the Republic of Armenia.”-stated M. Shushanyan.

The two lawyers of NGO engaged in the case Mushegh Shushanyan and Arthur Sukiasyan will file an appeal.

The Armenian version of the full text of Administrative Court decision can be found decision (PDF, 8 MB).