0 8000 12 11

As already reported by Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor, the Group of Public Observers Monitoring the RA MoJ Penitentiary Facilities and Agencies, which visited Vanadzor Penitentiary upon the alert, found that convict K. S. suffered continuous pressure by a penitentiary officer.

By its application filed with the RA Ministry of Justice, the Group of Observers expressed its concerns over the convict and requested to transfer him to another penitentiary facilities for security reasons. However, as we have already reported, the Ministry of Justice resolved the issue by transferring the penitentiary officer responsible for the pressure to another penitentiary.

Based on the crime report of September 12, 2015, a ruling was taken to reject initiation of criminal proceedings, which HCA Vanadzor appealed to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office. On October 9, 2015, the RA Prosecutor General’s Office Department for High-Profile Cases prosecutor E. Aramyan decreed to annul the decree of September 29, 2015 on refusing initiation of criminal proceedings and initiate criminal proceedings under Article 309(1) of the RA Criminal Code.

Under the criminal proceedings convict K. S., who still remained at Vanadzor Penitentiary facilities, provided evasive testimony thus giving up the protection of his rights and even renouncing his words about continuous pressure and threats by the penitentiary officer.

As a result, on December 9, 2015, it was decided to discontinue the criminal proceedings. Also, the investigator decreed not to initiate criminal prosecution against the persons who had submitted the crime report due to the absence of corpus delicti of false crime reporting under Article 333(1) of the RA Criminal Code.

On December 21, 2015, HCA Vanadzor filed a complaint with the RA Prosecutor General G. Kostanyan to annul the decree on discontinuing the criminal proceedings and give a legal assessment to initiation of criminal prosecution against the human rights defenders in a capacity of witnesses under the corpus delicti of Article 333 /false crime reporting/ of the RA Criminal Code by the investigator responsible for the proceedings.

RA Prosecutor General’s Office decree of January 8, 2016 reads that “… during the preliminary investigation into the criminal case, all the measures prescribed by law were taken to verify the circumstances of committing the official crimes by persons performing special state service at RA MoJ Vanadzor penitentiary facilities. However, no interconnected sufficient evidence was obtained and all the possibilities for obtaining new evidence were exhausted. Therefore, the complaint of A. Sakunts against the decree of December 9, 2015 on not initiating criminal prosecution and discontinuing the criminal proceedings is baseless and subject to dismissal.”

As for the criminal prosecution against the human rights defenders under false crime reporting, the decree of the Prosecutor General’s Office reads as follows: “In this regard, the preliminary investigation agency gave a proper legal assessment to the prima facie false crime reporting since under the proceedings, evidence were obtained rejecting the information on the circumstances provided by Arayik and Ofelya Zalyans and Artur Sakunts; therefore, the complainants’ conclusion on this part is also baseless.”

Hence, in the situation above, the convict had no opportunity to consistently protect his rights since the well-grounded concern of the Observers’ Group over his safety received no response and ended up in concealing of the crime. Moreover, there was an attempt to qualify the alerts of the human rights defenders, who took on the protection of the convict’s rights, as a false crime reporting, which is already an accepted practice adopted by the RA competent authorities.

Neither the Ministry of Justice, nor the RA General Prosecutor’s Office showed the will to reveal the real causes and reasons of the incident and moreover, once again targeted the institute of human rights defender.

HCA Vanadzor has repeatedly mentioned this vicious practices in a number of its publications.

It should be added that HCA Vanadzor intends to appeal the RA Prosecutor General’s Decree of January 8, 2016 on dismissing the complaint on not initiating criminal prosecution and discontinuing the criminal proceedings.