VICTIM’S RELATIVES SLAM PROBE OF DETENTION DEATH
Ruzanna Stepanian
rticle/2046054.html
18.05.2010
Armenia
Anahit, mother of Vahan Khalafian who died in police custody,
Charentsavan, 18May2010
Relatives of a man who died in Armenian police custody last month
condemned on Tuesday state forensic experts for giving more weight to
police claims that he committed suicide and was not tortured to death.
The experts concluded late last week that Vahan Khalafian, a resident
of the central town of Charentsavan, may have stabbed himself to death
at the local police station. Their findings are supposedly based on
detailed examinations of the 24-year-old’s body and may be decisive
for the outcome of the ongoing criminal investigation conducted by
the by Armenia’s Special Investigative Service (SIS).
The forensic medics confirmed earlier reports that there were two
stab wounds on Khalafian’s abdomen. But they said the nature of those
wounds and their "anatomic location" suggest that "their infliction
by V. Khalafian upon himself is possible."
The experts also found numerous injuries in various parts of his body.
But they said none of those were life-threatening.
Armenia — Hmayak Khalafian, uncle of a man who died in police custody,
speaks to RFE/RL, 18 May 2010.
The dead man’s relatives interviewed by RFE/RL’s Armenian service
angrily rejected their findings. "The examination report shows that
there are bloodied wounds on his skull, in the nose and mouth cavity,
vertical cuts caused by a knife on the upper abdomen, injuries on the
knee joints and feet," his uncle Hmayak Khalafian said. "I’m simply
amazed. After suffering so many injuries, how could a person stand
up and kill himself?"
"Vahan must have rolled on the floor in pain. How could he have
stood up and resorted to such an action? He would have rather struck
the criminal investigations unit chief who beat him up," he said,
referring to one of the two Charentsavan police officers arrested on
charges of torture.
Hmayak Khalafian also argued that investigators have failed to
identify fingerprints on the kitchen knife with which the young man
killed himself after a brutal police interrogation on April 13. "If
he stabbed himself twice, how come there are no fingerprints on the
knife?" he asked.
The Khalafian family, backed by some Armenian human rights activists,
has alleged all along that Vahan was killed by police interrogators.
After initial denials, the Armenian police have acknowledged that
he was ill-treated in police custody. But the police insist that his
death was caused by a suicide.
Whether the SIS, which is directly subordinated to Armenian
prosecutors, itself has already drawn any final conclusion on the
cause of the death is not yet known.