Minister’s “Top Secret” Order was required over Murder of 6 Servicemen
10:27, February 14, 2013 | News | Right to Life, Rights of Soldiers/Recruits | Armed Forces
Today, the RA Court of Appeals over criminal and military cases, presided by Judge Karine Ghazaryan, began the trial of the appeal submitted by human rights defender Artur Sakunts, Mikael Hovhannisyan, the father of deceased serviceman Robert Hovhannisyan and Svetlana Karapetyan, the mother of Andranik Sargsyan.
The responding party over this case is investigator Mushegh Bulghadaryan, who conducted the preliminary investigation over the murder of 6 servicemen on July 28, 2010 in one of MoD Martuni military units.
Although he appeared alone in the Court of Common Jurisdiction of Arabkir and Qanaqer-Zeytun Administrative Districts of Yerevan, this time Aram Khachatryan from Military Prosecutor’s Office joined him at the Court of Appeals.
The plaintiff party had notified that court that on July 28, 2012 Vardges Tadevosyan, Garegin Hovsepyan, Andranik Sargsyan, Robert Hovhannisyan, Karo Ayvazyan and Artur Manasyan died from gunshot wounds. The 2-year investigation was terminated without conducting a criminal prosecution and the case was closed.
The decision made by the investigator was appealed to the RA Military Prosecutor, later the plaintiff party applied to the Court of Common Jurisdiction of Arabkir and Qanaqer-Zeytun Administrative Districts of Yerevan in anticipation of a versatile investigation, quashing the investigator’s decision and begining a criminal prosecution against officers Vigen Petrosyan and Samvel Gevorgyan. However, on January 8 of 2013, the claim was declined and the human rights defender and the victims’ parents submitted an appeal to the RA Court of Appeals.
Artur Sakunts insisted that incomplete preliminary investigation was carried out, since the triggers of the wounds weren’t identified and no forensic medical examination was conducted whether or not murdered Tadevosyan had been in contact with a gun, the correspondence of the soldier’s corpse pose with the gunshot wounds wasn’t specified.
A. Sakunts stated that the only alive witness David Harutyunyan told he had heard “No, no Rob” which eliminated the version of the preliminary investigation that Karo Ayvazyan, convicted by a court in the USA and conscripted to RA Army, had fired the gunshot and committed a suicide in the end. It should be noted that K. Ayvazyan’s grandfather was present at the court trial.
The responding investigator and Military Prosecutor objected to the aforementioned proofs and stated the preliminary investigation had done utmost regarding the verification of some of the versions and added that the parents of the victims participated in the interrogations and confrontations. According to the responding party, it was proven that the murderer of the soldiers was Karo Ayvazyan.
The mother of murdered soldier pointed at the fact that the preliminary investigation body mentioned the case occurred at 14.45p.m., whereas she talked to her son on the phone at 18.20 p.m. on that day. She had also been informed that 3-4 guys would be taken to the “disciplinary isolator”. By the way, Svetlana Karapetyan doesn’t agree with the version that the guys were sleeping which leaded to the tragedy triggered by a dispute, because the only witness David Harutyunyan didn’t see the boys sleeping.
The plaintiff’s questions addressed to the responding party aimed to clarify on what basis the guys had been taken to carry out construction work, whether there was any connection between their exhaustion and the tragedy. The plaintiff party made a reference to # 0250 order of the Minister of Defense which was considered “top secret”. According to Sakunts, they weren’t familiar with the order content and therefore couldn’t fully take advantage of defense. Hence, he submitted a motion to be provided with the order.
Discussion over the appeal was put off until the next court hearing.