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On December 9-10, 2004, conscripts Roman Yeghiazaryan and Hovsep Mkrtumyan were found dead at the Mataghis military unit. Since April of 2005, accusations have been brought against Arayik Zalyan, Mussa Serobyan and Razmik Sargsyan.

Till 2013, the prosecution made every effort to prove the guilt of those young men and even managed to have a life sentence passed on them by the RA Criminal Court of Appeal. Nevertheless, the RA Court of Cassation ultimately passed a sentence of acquittal.

The Mataghis case has been in the spotlight of public attention for many years; almost everybody knew about the case, and most people were convinced of the innocence of the young men accused for killing their fellow soldiers.

On December 18, 2012, the RA Court of General Jurisdiction of Shirak passed a sentence of acquittal of Arayik Zalyan, Mussa Serobyan and Razmik Sargsyan, and the sentence was later upheld by the RA Court of Appeal for Criminal and Military Cases.

Almost 16 months have already passed after pronouncement of this sentence and in order to find out the steps taken to detect and punish the real criminals, the HCA Vanadzor Office submitted an official letter to the RA Military Prosecutor A. Harutyunyan on March 17, 2014. The letter reads as follows:

“… Please, provide information on the issues below:

1. What investigative actions have been taken so far?
2. Have any charges been brought to anybody?
3. If yes, how many people were charged and under which articles of the RA Criminal Law?”

In response to the letter, on March 28, 2014, the HCA Vanadzor Office received the reply of the Shirak garrison military prosecutor’s office under the RA Central Military Prosecutors’ Office. Accordingly, the criminal case № 90800104 was received by the 10^th garrison Investigation Department of the Investigation Service under the RA Ministry of Defense on September 2, 2013, and on the same day the Deputy Head of the Department G. Grigoryan decided to consider the criminal case. The preliminary investigation of the mentioned criminal case covered all the necessary investigative actions and questioning of many witnesses. The preliminary investigation of the criminal case № 90800104 is in progress.

Hence, the RA Military Prosecutor’s Office fails either to take adequate actions to find real criminals of this much-talked-of case, or to provide proper information on the investigation. The information provided is incomplete and contains no answers to the questions in the inquiry to the RA Military Prosecutor’s Office.