On December 18, 2014 the hearing of Sargis Sahakyan’s murder trial was continued (based on the appeals of the aggrieved party and the defendant). It should be noted once again that as a result of an inaccurate preliminary investigation, the murder was presented as a suicide. Moreover, during the trial numerous offences were revealed which were carried out by the investigative body and the prosecutor’s office during the preliminary investigation phase.

Without taking into consideration the aforementioned provided facts, Judge Napoleon Ohanyan made an unfair decision considering proven the fact that Sargis Sahakyan committed suicide, after which two people were charged with driving the latter to commit suicide.

During this trial the defendant’s lawyer Mrs. Torosyan challenged prosecutor Gagik Mayilyan with the following: “in 2014 the prosecutor and his colleague Ashot Gasparyan applied to court and a criminal case was initiated based on the fact that after the trial the defendant Arthur Misakyan’s father threatened the prosecutor, his colleague and members of their families”.

The preliminary investigation considered it proven that Ara Misakyan in fact did threaten Mayilyan and, afterwards, a criminal case was sent to the court. Since Mayilyan was considered an aggrieved party and Ara Misakyan’s actions were derived from the same criminal case being heard, Mayilyan should be considered an interested party and therefore cannot continue the case as a prosecutor.

The representative of the victim’s successor, Peace Dialogue NGO’s expert criminologist R. Martirosyan also challenged the prosecutor on the following grounds. Mayilyan was involved in the case from the very beginning as an observing prosecutor and numerous illegalities were committed throughout this case’s investigation.

Therefore, Mayilyan either displayed official inaction or these illegalities were committed by his instigation and support. The illegalities continued after the preliminary investigation and into the trial: Mayilyan called witness GorMargaryan at least three times and demanded that he repeated his testimony given during the preliminary investigation phase and threatened him that in case he would not do that he would be severely punished.

While giving testimony as a witness, Gor Margaryan announced that his testimonies given during the preliminary investigation were false and he wrote them under pressure. During the break announced by the Judge, prosecutor Mayilyan forced the witness Margaryan to go to one of the rooms in the court building. He ordered and forced Margaryan to give written explanation to the Military Police officers, the same officers who extorted false testimonies from him during the preliminary investigation phase.

Mayilyan’s actions were illegal because the witness was already testifying to the court the same day at that time: the prosecutor has no authority to force the witness to give explanations to the Military Police officers.

These actions of Mayilyan are criminal offences aimed at terrorizing, silencing the victim and forcing him to give false testimonies that are favored by the preliminary investigative body and the prosecutor’s office.

The court considered there were grounds for both the defendant’s and the aggrieved party’s challenge (particularly that prosecutor Mayilyan displayed official inaction during the preliminary investigation phase) and accepted the challenge.

This decision implies that the Court will send facts based on its decision to the General Prosecutor.

Peace Dialogue NGO will continue following the trial: the next trial will take place at 12:00p.m on January 15, 2015.

United States Department of State, Armenia 2013 Human rights report (pdf)

The deceased soldier talked to his mother only a few hours prior his death.
A few hours prior his death soldier Arthur Margaryan called home. This is what one of Arthur’s relatives said in an interview with Gala.

“He called and wanted to talk to his mother”,- said Arthur’s uncle.

To our questions what exactly did Arthur say he said, he wanted to know whether they had noticed anything unusual about his behavior, whether he complained or not, our interviewee said he did not know any details.

It was just a regular call, just like any soldier who calls home to know how is everything going. It was exactly two hours before that…I don’t know about the rest.”-he said.

According to the official hypothesis, the soldier died after shooting himself to the chest.

Peace Dialogue NGO’s expert Ruben Martirosyan thinks this is theoretically possible:
“Theoretically, this is possible; he could have shot himself to the chest. However, in fact I have not come across any suicide case in the last few years: the preliminary investigative body presents all the murder cases as suicides, afterwards the court, which is in fact its attaché, presents the cases as suicide the same way. As a result the death of innocent soldiers are classified as suicides, while the murderers walk around free in Armenia.”- says the expert. According to him, only the objective examination during the post mortem and following it will reveal what really happened.

See the Armenian full version the article 

Anyone who is more or less informed, after reading the article “With the intervention of Ombudsman the conditions of disciplinary isolation cells (isolators) were considerably improved” posted in the News section of the official website of the RA Ombudsman, should be at least puzzled. The article talks about the successful cooperation between the Ombudsman and the Ministry of Defense of Republic of Armenia.

“Deputy Ombudsman for Military Affairs Armen Grigoryan voiced the necessity for replacing the beds attached on the Military police disciplinary isolation cell walls and lockable metal beds and securing each soldier with minimum living space provided by law. The Ministry of Defense gave proper solutions to these problems: all necessary types of beds were installed and the required living space was provided. As a result of the cooperation between the Ombudsman and the Ministry of Defense, a number of practical and legal problems in the RA disciplinary cells were revealed and most of these problems have already been resolved.”

Our concern is that disciplinary isolation cells should not exist in the Military Police and Ministry of Defense at all. Based on the National Assembly decision in 2012, the previous disciplinary statute of 1996 was revised. The main reason why it was revised was that the previous statute was in contradiction with the RA Constitution and International laws, particularly because it assumed the existence of disciplinary cells. In fact

According to Article 83.5, Point 2 and Point 6 of the RA Constitution, the issues below shall be set forth exclusively by the laws of the Republic of Armenia

2) restrictions on the rights and freedoms of physical bodies and legal entities, their obligations, as well as forms, extent and procedure for liability thereof, means of compulsion and the procedure for such…

6) cases, procedure and terms for criminal, administrative, economic(property) or disciplinary liability

According to Article 5, Point 2 of the RA Constitution, state and local self-government bodies and public officials are competent to perform only such acts for which they are authorized by Constitution or laws!

Based on the new disciplinary statute, and as a result of unconstitutional and arbitrary decisions of the commanders, the disruptive soldiers should bear sanctions in the disciplinary battalion.

The comment above suggests elimination of disciplinary detention cells in the Military Police and Ministry of Defense. It was simply bizarre to learn that the Human Rights Defender

(an official, who, acting pursuant to the Constitution and the Law of the Republic of Armenia, as well as principles and norms of International Law and guided by social justice and fundamental principles of social coexistence protects the human rights and fundamental freedoms violated by central and local government agencies or their officials; is independent in exercising his powers, is subject only to the Constitution and laws of the Republic of Armenia, as well as the norms and principles of international law, is not subject to any state or local government agency or official)

in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense failed to identify the issue that in fact isolators are illegal not to help to improve the living conditions in these isolators.

Peace Dialogue NGO asked the RA Human Rights Defender’s office to clarify what exactly the article was about: particularly which isolators were mentioned in the article? Why should the living conditions be improved there, instead of completely removing the isolators? 

In case the abovementioned is simply a misunderstanding caused by inaccurate article posted in the website, then the organization kindly asks for some clarification on what was supposed to be written in the article and what practical and legal problems connected with the RA isolators does the article mention exactly?

In response to Peace Dialogue’s enquiry, the Ombudsman answered the following: “…the official announcement is about the measures taken to improve the conditions of the detentions where arrested soldiers and soldiers sentenced to detention by court decision are kept.” He also quoted a government decision adopted in 2008, whereas, as it was already mentioned, the new RA Ministry of Defense Disciplinary Statute of Armed Forces was adopted in 2012 and in Article 23( Article 23: Disciplinary Penalties given to soldiers) of the same statute which states that nothing is mentioned about MoD garrison isolators.

In the second letter addressed to the Ombudsman, Peace Dialogue NGO wanted to find out why the Human Right Defender should cooperate with the Ministry of Defense and even evaluate the “Adequate responsiveness of Ministry of Defense towards the recommendations to improve the legal status of soldiers” as a positive step, when on January 25, 2001 the Republic of Armenia, became a full member of the Council of Europe and among other responsibilities embarked on reforms to the detention centers.

In particular, point  f. of the responsibilities section clearly mentions:

“to adopt, within six months of its accession, the law on the transfer of responsibility for the prison system, including pre-trial detention centers and work colonies, from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Justice, and to ensure the effective implementation of this law within six months after it has been adopted, except as regards the effective transfer of the pre-trial detention centers and work colonies, which must be implemented within one year after the Law has been adopted”.

According to published reports, the process of transferring the prison system, including pre-trial detention centers and work colonies, from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Justice, was over in the January of 2003. All necessary regulations for the improvement of the prison system were adopted under RA Law on treatment of arrestees and detainees (6.02.02), RA Law on Penitentiary Service (15.12.03), etc). On November 10, 2004 RA National Assembly adopted the RA Penitentiary Code regarding the treatment of detainees.

Taking into consideration the aforementioned, the second enquiry of Peace Dialogue had the same questions as the previous one, with one  exception: in this correspondence we asked the Ombudsman to  “Please explain why the conditions in the MoD military disciplinary isolators (See the article “With the intervention of Ombudsman the conditions of disciplinary isolations were considerably improved” posted in the official website of RA Ombudsman) should be improved, instead of completely removing the isolators.” If it talks about “…the measures taken to improve the conditions of the detentions where arrested soldiers and soldiers sentenced to detention by court decision are kept”, as you claim in your response, then don’t you think it is more appropriate to cooperate with the Ministry of Justice, rather than the Ministry of Defense?”

Deputy Ombudsman for Military Affairs Armen Grigoryan called Peace Dialogue office and inquired what exactly the cause for our concern was and what exactly we are trying to find out.

After a long discussion, the Ombudsman sent a response letter addressed to Peace Dialogue.  In this correspondence, it turned out that the announcement was neither about the Military Police disciplinary isolators (as it was mentioned in the article) nor about the conditions of the detentions where arrested soldiers and soldiers sentenced to detention by court decision are kept (as it was formulated in the first explanation). Instead,

“…the announcement talked about the results of the measures taken to solve the identified problems based on the recommendations which were prepared after Ombudsman’s office staff did monitoring and visited Kanaz Hospital, Disciplinary Battalion, as well as the RA MoD Lori region garrison’s Vanadzor department, and Syunik region.”

It was also mentioned in the letter that the standards of The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) are applied to all persons deprived of their liberty, including the armed forces, regardless of detention centers’ departmental subordination. Therefore, the recommendations aimed at improving the living conditions and ensuring the rights of persons deprived of liberty.

From this sentence we may assume that the Ombudsman’s office is not concerned at all whether the existence of any isolator or detention center is prescribed by constitution or certain law. They are only concerned about the living condition of those who are kept there. Thus, if someone suddenly decides to “furnish” an isolator in his/her cellar and forces his/her neighbors (or not all of them, only those he/she dislikes) to “be kept there”, then Human rights defenders and law enforcement agencies should be concerned only with the availability of the window and the bed or the quality of food,  nothing else.

However, to somehow make their argument stronger, in the letter, they informed us that Peace Dialogue’s concern that the detention centers for the arrested soldiers are under RA Ministry of Defense, finally reached its aim and this legal issue is already being examined by Human Rights Defender’s office. There is still hope!

Peace Dialogue NGO’s military expert Ruben Martirosyan also thinks that the fact that the soldiers are kept in the isolators contradicts the RA Constitution since according the Constitution, the person cannot be deprived of or restricted in his/her liberty by the procedure defined by law.

“Thus, all the cases when the soldier is kept in the isolator for some violations of law or misdemeanor are vivid illegalities.

Therefore, it is funny that the Ombudsman and its staff talk about improving the living conditions in the isolators, when, in fact, they should talk about eliminating these structures and their unlawfulness. There are Military Police isolators in all the regions where the soldiers are being beaten up by the RA MoD Investigative Service and Military Police officers and false testimonies are extracted from them.  As a result of such false testimonies, deliberate murders in the army are being presented as suicides, negligently committed killings or murders committed by enemy snipers.”-said R. Martirosyan. There are numerous facts in the cases of Sargis Sahakyan, Torgom Sarukhanyan, and Artak Nazaryan when the soldiers were put under pressure in the isolators.”

We would like this article to be seen as an open letter addressed to the RA Human Right Defender and his staff. In the letters from the Ombudsman and his staff there are different arguments, and different excuses, which, as we have already mentioned, often contradict each other. Even after receiving the response letters, it still remains unclear: We are still puzzled.

-According to Ombudsman, are there illegally functioning isolators under Military Police and RA Ministry of Defense or not?

– Is the Human Rights defender informed whether they exist or not? Can they exist or not?

We expect the answers to these questions to be as clear as possible and as public as possible.

P.S. In a letter sent to Peace Dialogue NGO on Decmeber 3, 2014 and received on December 10, 2014, the Human Rights Defender’s office informed us that in order to give a comprehensive answer to all the questions concerning the disciplinary isolation cells (isolators) raised in the open letter, the office has sent an inquiry to the RA Ministry of Defense. The letter went on to say that, “As soon as we receive an official answer from the ministry, we will send a response to you”.

The Court of Appeals heard on appeal the case of the murder of Sargis Sahakyan November 7, 2014.

Let us mention that during the original trial at the Court of First Instance the aggrieved party and the prosecution presented facts which showed that Sargis Sahakyan was in fact murdered. They charged that the preliminary investigative body carried out an inadequate investigation and presented the case in court as a suicide.

Peace Dialogue NGO has referred to the details of this and other trials like it many times. The aggrieved party presented evidence which was obtained from the testimonies of witnesses Tadevosyan and Margaryan. These testimonies provided evidence of crimes within the Military Prosecution- RA Ministry of Defense and Investigative Service- RA MoD Military Police systems.

It is quite interesting, that these materials, which contain reports of crimes being committed, were not discussed by the court, the RA Special Investigative Service, or by the General Prosecutor’s office or General Prosecutor.

In Kentron district Court the aggrieved party attempted to dispute the inaction of the abovementioned bodies; however Judge M. Martirosyan, decided that the aggrieved party’s appeal was “ungrounded”. According to Peace Dialogue NGO’s criminal expert Ruben Martirosyan, so far this case has been handled in a shameful way. When there is a report of crimes being committed by state bodies that claim illegality showed be investigated; however in this case, all the state bodies refused to even consider these reports.

Referring to the mentioned trial, R. Martirosyan, who acted as the representative of the aggrieved party’s successor, in the beginning of the trial challenged the court including Judges Karine Ghazaryan, Henrik Adamyan and Grisha Melik-Sargsyan. He justified his challenge with the following: the court with the mentioned members had made illegal and unjustified decisions in the following cases:

• Artak Nazaryan’s murder case (Died on 27.07.2010)
• Torgom Sarukhanyan’s murder case. He died on 12.02.2011 (it is worth mentioning that these two cases and S. Sahakyan’s case were unlawfully qualified as suicide by the preliminary investigative body
• Albert Adibekyan’s murder case (died on 23.02.2012)

According to R. Martirosyan’s statement which is based on verifiable facts, false charges were brought against Ignat Yengibaryan from the City of Hrazdan and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing A. Adibekyan.

All these unlawful cases were “adjudicated” by the abovementioned three persons: for each case the judge of the trial was one of these three. In his speech regarding the challenge Martirosyan drew particular attention to the proceedings of all three cases. Further, he challenged these judges who made a decision on hearing the case under cassation regime. This regime allows the Court of Appeals to take on the function of the Court of Cassation which assumes that an objective and thorough investigation was carried out during the preliminary investigation and at the Court of First Instance and there is no need to question more witnesses or additionally examine the evidence!.

Using this regime, the witnesses and the parties do not have any additional opportunity to testify. According to our expert, each of these verdicts regarding the aforementioned cases is absolutely unlawful and just proved that the court was following an order not providing justice.

R. Martirosyan justified his challenge by the fact that while taking the proceedings of S. Sahakyan’s case, again there was a decision to investigate it under cassation regime only. Once again this brings up suspicion that the trio of judges is again following an order and will, by all means, try to conceal the preliminary investigative body’s illegalities, as well as the unlawful verdict made by Judge of the Court of First Instance Napoleon Ohanyan.

R. Martirosyan reminds us that based on the unlawful verdicts made by these judges, through three previous cases nine innocent soldiers have already been sentenced to imprisonment. He announced that he will do everything in his power to prevent two other soldiers Khachatryan and Misakyan, who are charged with S. Sahakyan’s murder, from having the same fate.

The Court went on to discuss the challenge in the consultative room. An important incident happened before that: witness Lieutenant Gor Margaryan announced that he wished to testify and present new and important facts.

“This incident, just like my speech and challenge, obviously scared the Court and after returning from the consultative room the Judge announced that he rejected the motion for a challenge and that I am just spreading false rumors.”- said R. Martirosyan.

After this rejection, the Judge announced that there was a misunderstanding and that “they were not given an opportunity or they were deprived of an opportunity to think carefully” over the fact that they were not allowed to start the trial since there was a violation of law: one (currently presenting as a witness) of the three former detainees who had been charged within another case trial and then were granted amnesty and released, did not show up at court. On this basis, the court interrupted the trial and announced that the next trial will be held on November 28, at 12:30 o’clock. It is not clear what this means for this case.  It is our hope that they will vacate the judgment completely and order a new and more thorough trial.  We certainly owe this to our soldiers in arms.