The European Court of Human Rights has recently addressed questions to the Armenian government regarding the cases of 3 servicemen who died in non-combat conditions in the army. Reporters for Human Rights legal news site writes about this.
From the studies of military cases and the comparison of facts, it becomes obvious that the law enforcement and justice systems of Armenia are trying to hide the reality from the relatives of the dead servicemen with a stubbornness reaching the point of criminality.
What is the scheme? A criminal case is initiated for the death of a serviceman, but an ineffective and non-objective investigation is carried out, as a result, the perpetrators of the murders are not identified and punished. The pre-trial body intensively uses the practice of circulating the suicide hypothesis and building a story around it. Misrepresentation of the history of a criminal case creates grounds for dismissing the case.
Under these circumstances, it is completely natural that the European Court of Human Rights regularly publishes decisions on military cases received from Armenia, stating that significant violations were committed during the examination of the case.
Hovhannisyan and Karapetyan against Armenia
The European Court has recently addressed questions to the Armenian government regarding the cases of Robert Hovhannisyan and Andranik Sargsyan, soldiers killed in the NKR Defense Army. This is an incident during which 6 soldiers died.
On July 28, 2010, the corpses of 19-year-old Robert Hovhannisyan, 21-year-old Andranik Margaryan and 4 other soldiers of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic army were found in a combat position. According to the official version, senior lieutenant Vardges Tadevosyan found soldiers Andranik Sargsyan and Karo Ayvazyan sleeping in a combat position during combat duty. The officer scolded and cursed, and started beating Andranik Sargsyan first.
Karo Ayvazyan realized that he was the next one, and shot from the weapon attached to him, killed the commander, then the other 4 fellow soldiers, and then committed suicide. The criminal case initiated on the basis of the death of the persons who committed the crime was dismissed one year later. The injured party appealed this decision of the pre-trial body, which was rejected. Relatives of the killed soldiers found it suspicious that the body conducting the proceedings did not investigate the injuries found on the bodies of the killed soldiers.
“The Republic of Armenia did not protect the right to life of servicemen under its control, it did not conduct a proper investigation into its violation, in the presence of many unexplained questions and contradictions in the criminal case,” the representatives of the successors of Robert Hovhannisyan and Andranik Margaryan submitted the following claims in the complaint sent to the European Court, “Thus, it violated the right to life enshrined in Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
The representatives of the successors of the killed servicemen believe that a proper investigation was not carried out by the commander, instead of punishing the servicemen under his command, he subjected them to torture. The state thereby violated the right to be free from torture stipulated in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. And finally, the successors of the victims were deprived of the opportunity to participate in the investigation, which violated their right to an effective means of legal protection stipulated by Article 13 of the ECHR.
The complaint was submitted to the ECHR in 2013 by the representatives of the heirs of the murdered Robert Hovhannisyan and Andranik Margaryan, the president of the HCA Vanadzor office, Artur Sakunts, and the lawyer of the organization, Araik Zalyan. The Armenian government must answer questions about rights violations within 16 weeks.
Alaverdyan vs. Armenia
The case of Edvard Alaverdyan, a soldier born in Hrazdan, who died in peaceful conditions, which is also in the proceedings of the European Court of Human Rights, contains no less questions. The applicant is the father of the serviceman, Semyon Alaverdyan.
According to the data of the criminal case, on July 29, 2011, at 06:45, 19-year-old soldier Edward Alaverdyan committed suicide in the combat position of the Hadrut military unit. According to the indictment, Edward took that step because of the periodic slaps and threats received by fellow soldier Sahak Aslibekyan. By the verdict of July 3, 2013, the court of Syunik region sentenced Sahak Aslibekyan to 6 years of imprisonment on the charge of suicide.
In this case, the pre-investigative body applied the article of causing suicide, which has already become a classic, while the defense side has doubts that a murder actually took place and at least one of the criminals is at large.
According to the successors of the dead soldier Edward Alaverdyan, the case of the death of the soldier went to the court with the wrong description from the beginning. According to Inessa Petrosyan, the lawyer representing the injured party, there was a murder.
What facts does the defense provide for such a claim? The day after the death of the serviceman, on July 30, 2011, investigator Hayrapetyan appointed forensic and forensic expertise, but the expert center received the decision and the rifle only on October 17. No fingerprints were found on the suicide weapon. The problem is that the weapon reached the experts only two and a half months later, which gave the relatives reason to believe that it is possible that other people committed the crime and did not specifically present the weapon to the experts so that the traces were lost.
Where does the trail of the cover-up of the case lead? According to the information provided by the NKR Military Police, on the day of the incident, along with 6 other servicemen, private Sedrak Gevorgyan was also taken into custody, who, according to the case materials, was already discharged on July 1 and was no longer a private soldier. Edward Alaverdyan’s relatives received hints that 2 servicemen and 1 civilian were guilty of the death and murder of their son. What is special is that during the preliminary investigation, an amnesty was applied to the same Sedrak Gevorgyan.
In the complaint submitted to the European Court, the father of the “suicide” soldier expressed his conviction that the authorities did not conduct an effective investigation to find out the true circumstances of his son’s death, as required by Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. At the ECHR, Semyon Alaverdyan also disputes the suicide hypothesis put forward by the investigative body.
Malkhasyan vs. Armenia
Another military case in the European Court, which has entered the stage of active examination. Areg Malkhasyan, a regular soldier of the NKR Armed Forces, managed to serve in the army for only 7 days. 22-year-old Areg died on July 4, 2009, when he was rushed to the Mekhakavan hospital due to an acute blood circulation disorder in the coronary vessels.
Before their son’s enlistment, Areg’s parents went through a long and painful struggle, knocking on a thousand and one doors so that their sick child would not be drafted into the army. In his medical documents, diseases related to the stomach were reflected, which was ignored by the doctors of the Arabkir military commissariat and especially by the military commissar of Arabkir Armen Ulikhanyan.
The latter is a key player in this case. The father of soldier Areg Malkhasyan said that military commissar Ulikhanyan removed the recorded medical diagnoses of stomach disease from the health record of the recruit. That is why the sick young man was drafted into the army. The action of the military commission, which went forgery, was never legally evaluated.
The doctors interrogated in the criminal case claimed that Areg would not have been drafted into the army if the documents of his illness were present in the personal file. They also concluded that Areg Malkhasyan should have undergone instrumental examination for the second time. It follows from this that failure to re-examine the patient itself speaks of the existence of a criminal act.
Nevertheless, the pre-investigation body found that the death of Areg Malkhasyan was not the result of the negligence of any doctor or official. Accordingly, the proceedings in the criminal case were terminated, no criminal prosecution was carried out against any person.
The representative of the victim’s successor, lawyer Seda Safaryan, stated in the complaint submitted to the European Court that the state did not fulfill its obligations. “The conscript’s health condition was not properly examined, an effective investigation into the fact of the soldier’s death was not ensured, in terms of identifying the culprits and bringing them to justice, the reasonable deadlines for investigating the case were also violated.”
It is expected that the European Court will make positive decisions on these cases in the near future. It should be noted that in addition to the above-mentioned 3 cases, as of August, 7 more military cases received from Armenia are under active investigation at the European Court. They are: “Mirzoyan vs. Armenia”, “Manukyan vs. Armenia”, “Dimaksyan vs. Armenia”, “Adamyanner vs. Armenia”, “Varian vs. Armenia”, “Hovhannisyan and Nazaryan vs. Armenia”, “Mkrtchyan vs. Armenia”. The series of these applications started in 2010.
The examination of 1 soldier, Suren Muradyan, has already been completed and the European Court has issued a legal assessment. It is noteworthy that only 2 out of 11 cases refer to the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia. The remaining 9 cases are related to servicemen of the Artsakh Armed Forces.
10 days of death. Suren Muradyan
The case of soldier Suren Muradyan is one of the best examples of how deeply the European Court investigates. The ECtHR simply left no stone unturned in the case made by the Armenian law enforcement officers. It was revealed how the investigative bodies, the military prosecutor’s office, and the courts falsified the criminal case. As a result, the Armenian government provided 55,000 euros in compensation to the Muradyan family.
The soldier’s death came as a result of 10 days of psychological and physical violence. Suren Muradyan was drafted into the Nagorno Karabakh army in 2001. On August 3 of the following year, Suren was hospitalized with suspected malaria. The next day, Suren’s condition worsened, he lost consciousness, the doctors failed to revive him and he died. Blood tests, however, ruled out the presence of malaria.
A post-mortem examination and autopsy confirmed that the soldier died of a ruptured spleen from internal bleeding. The injury was caused by blunt force trauma. Old and new bruises were also found in the same area. The ECtHR considered that there was sufficient evidence, according to which the injury could have been inflicted as a result of violence by high-ranking officers.
The European court concluded that the Armenian law enforcement officers failed to conduct an effective investigation. “The court considers that the officials did not present a convincing explanation regarding Suren Muradyan’s injury and his death as a result…”
Lawyer Vahe Grigoryan evaluated the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of soldier Suren Muradyan, considering it the most substantiated and well-founded answer to the prosecutor’s office and high-ranking leaders of law enforcement agencies. “…who have ignored or remained criminally silent even when the relatives and lawyers of the killed presented direct evidence in cases concerning the right to life of conscripts.”
In the case of Suren Muradyan, the European court pointed out: “The Armenian authorities are responsible for the ineffective investigation into the death of a serviceman in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Sabotage against Armenia’s defense capability. assessment of the situation
Military cases are under the constant observation of lawyer Vahe Grigoryan. As the person responsible for the failure of the investigation of military affairs and the concealment of the truth, he is targeting law enforcement officers and judges, who, according to the lawyer’s assessment, are deliberately organizing and carrying out sabotage against Armenia’s defense capability. “Is this professional anti-propaganda against Armenia? Is this the result of policies aimed at demoralizing the armed forces, other defense systems and the public sector that feeds them and consistently implemented?
During the investigation of military cases, the judicial bodies, apart from the legal definitions, should emphasize and bring the human factor to the fore. “I am sure that for military law enforcement officers and judges, the suffering suffered by relatives of servicemen has no significance. Grief is not enough for them, now they have to put aside many worries and struggle for years in uncertainty to get the least reliable information about what happened to their son or brother, knocking on a thousand and one doors, finding their fellow soldiers years later and making inquiries…”
According to the lawyer’s assessment, there is a political will to prohibit any intervention that could lead to the correction of the situation.
According to lawyer Seda Safaryan, the perpetrators of military murders are not punished because of the subjective examination of the body conducting the proceedings.
“If the question is about what the soldier did to the soldier, in this context someone is punished, but what about the actions of doctors, commission members, officials, unfortunately they are not the subject of investigation.
Investigations of military cases are not conducted according to the laws of criminal procedure, but according to political decisions. The anti-human machine covering up military affairs works with the close cooperation of investigative, prosecutorial and judicial bodies. In fact, it turns out that the state abandons its main function, which is to ensure the right to life of a person.