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Justice or Coverup?: Controversial trial of soldiers sees new charge

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  • Justice or Coverup?: Controversial trial of soldiers sees new charge

    Justice or Coverup?: Controversial trial of soldiers sees new charges
    for previously-resolved case

    HUMAN RIGHTS | 12.12.12 | 10:41


    Photolure

    Zaruhi Postanjyan, Hayk Alumyan
    By GAYANE ABRAHAMYAN
    ArmeniaNow reporter


    The Armenian judicial system is being tested again as the scandalous
    Mataghis Case has entered a new phase after several months of
    procrastination, and while oppositional Armenian National Congress MP,
    former military prosecutor Gagik Jhangiryan is talking about the
    `lamentable state' of human rights in the country (during a march on
    Human Rights Day).

    Three young men convicted and tortured during his tenure keep fighting
    for justice and blaming the same Jhangiryan for `ruining their lives'.

    Razmik Sargsyan, Arayik Zalyan and Musa Serobyan, all age 27, were
    charged with murder in 2004, following the discovery of the bodies of
    conscripts Hovsep Mkrtumyan and Roman Yeghiazaryan in a water
    reservoir in Nagorno Karabakh's Mataghis village.

    The first instance court sentenced them to 15 years, however a court
    of appeals increased the punishment to life sentences. Unexpectedly,
    the Court of Cassation, in 2006, released the convicts, marking the
    first time in independent Armenia's history that the higher court
    annulled an appeals court decision. The case was sent back for further
    investigation.

    It seemed that the case would never go back to court again, but, as
    the defence attorney Hayk Alumyan says, `Unlawfulness in an unlawful
    country is taken till the very end.'

    Now, the men are being brought up on lesser charges for the same
    crime, accused of accidental death by beating, with the maximum
    punishment of 7-8 years' imprisonment. (Armenia's Criminal Code puts
    the crime at up to 10 years. Prosecutors are calling for 7-8 and the
    previous three years would count as time served.)

    `The authorities don't want to back down on case that was fabricated
    from A-Z,' the attorney told ArmeniaNow. `If they close the case
    they'd have to find the real culprits, whose identities are known, but
    the prosecution of that time [2004] fabricated the case, and it is now
    continued by the current authorities.'

    According to the victims' legal successors and the defendants' parents
    the chief `script-writer' of the fabrication is former military
    prosecutor Jhangiryan, who has today become a `fighter for justice,
    when in fact he was the one who covered up our children's murderers'
    case,' says Hovsep Mkrtumyan's father, Movsep Mkrtumyan.

    The victim's legal successor Mkrtumyan is convinced that the accused
    soldiers had nothing to do with the murder, but believes the court
    will not be fair this time either.

    `The real murderers are among the commander staff, hence they are
    defended with might and main,' Mkrtumyan told ArmeniaNow.

    In 2005 Zaruhi Postanjyan, now a Heritage faction MP, was the attorney
    in the original case and submitted a letter sent from the then NKR
    Defence Minster Seyran Ohanyan to Jhangiryan related to Mataghis
    battalion commander Ivan Grigoryan. In the letter the minister was
    asking to `be lenient with battalion commander Ivan Grigoryan, since
    he is a national hero and regrets his deed'.

    Despite the letter and other material evidence and testimonies tracing
    the murder to commander Grigoryan, who was involved in the case as a
    witness, the court was unable to have him present during the trial
    even as such [as a witness], with an excuse that Grigoryan's location
    was unknown.

    Postanjyan is convinced that the case has been brought to surface
    again to help the state avoid a punishment by the European Court of
    Human Rights (ECHR).

    Razmik Sargsyan's case was in the process at ECHR, which in 2007 sent
    a list of questions to the government of Armenia, in particular
    related to forcing testimony through physical abuse and torture; this
    year the European Court has sent an inquiry for the second time.

    If ECHR regards as a proven fact that the crucial testimony was forced
    out of Sargsyan with violence and torture, the case will have to be
    suspended, since the other two were accused along with him based
    purely on that testimony.

    `The case fell apart yet in 2006 at the court of cassation, it was so
    obvious during the trial that there simply was no ground for any other
    verdict; they had to annul the previous two verdicts; now, however,
    everything is done not to let the real wrongdoers be punished,'
    Postanjyan told ArmeniaNow.

    Postanjyan is convinced that her former clients (the three defendants)
    will demand compensation `for terrible torture, three years of prison
    and serious damage to health' and that the `state now is avoiding
    either compensation or disclosure of the guilty and the responsibility
    to punish the monsters covering up this case.'
    Sargsyan's parents are in despair, but keep fighting.

    `Because of the beatings, the hunger strike (carried out by the
    defendants in prison), my son's health has deteriorated beyond cure.
    They hit him in the kidneys so much that they are seriously damaged
    now, so is his spine,' says Torgom Sargsayn, father of Razmik. `We
    have to see to the punishment of those who have ruined his life. They
    have ruined so many others just like our son. How many innocent people
    have been sent to prison, in order to cover up the real culprits. I
    saved my son from under the ruins (during the 1988 Spitak earthquake]
    He survived by miracle, and now I am unable to save him from their
    hands.'

    The current trial in Gyumri at the Shirak Region Court of Common
    Jurisdiction, is in its final stages and expected to conclude December
    14. Human rights activists are expected to stage protests leading up
    to the court decision. The three defendants have not been detained.

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