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On May 19, 2014, the RA Criminal Court of Appeal, presided by judge Y. Darbinyan, proceeded with considering the appeals on Hayk Kaleyan’s case. Note that the previous hearing was delayed to ensure the presence of the prosecuting party, Hayk Mkrtchyan.

At the hearing, the prosecuting party, Hayk Mkrtchyan, deputy military prosecutor at the NKR Askeran town №3 garrison, presented his responses to the appeals filed by Artur Sakunts, representative of the aggrieved party’s successor, and defendant Santur Dombryan’s advocate. Hayk Mkrtchyan noted that the arguments advanced by Artur Sakunts in his appeal had nothing to do with the reality since, the preliminary investigation had covered a number of investigative and judicial operations as well as various versions of both murder and suicide, complete, objective and comprehensive preliminary investigation and proceedings. Hayk Mkrtchyan stated that the collected evidence suggested that Hayk Kaleyan had committed a suicide. Thus, Hayk Mkrtchyan asked the court to dismiss the appeal of the representative of the aggrieved party’s successor.

At the hearing, the Court addressed a number of questions raised in the appeal of complainant Artur Sakunts ignored by the prosecuting party. However, the answers provided were irrelevant and unclear. Thus, in reply to the question of the presiding judge E. Darbinyan on whether the aggrieved party, H. Karelyan, had suffered mockery in a state of psychic desadaptation and whether such actions had not affected his state considering that the commanders were aware of it, the prosecuting party Hayk Mkrtchyan answered that the guilt of the commanders was not established or proved by the criminal case. Nevertheless, after a while, the latter noted that some servicemen were brought to disciplinary liability under the internal investigation.

Next, the court tried to find out whether the investigation had revealed why the aggrieved party had no bullet-proof vest on during his stay on the shooting ground. In response to this question, Hayk Mkrtchyan stated that no soldier there had any bullet-proof vest on.

The court voiced another critical question raised in the appeal, i.e. the aggrieved party could not have inflicted himself a top-down wound, and the position of the shooter should have been at least higher than that of his victim who got a gunshot wound. However, the prosecutor failed to give a full answer to this question either and only noted that the expert Hrayr Ghukasyan had already presented his expert opinion after the expertise.

The prosecutor also mentioned that despite the fact that the incident had occurred on the shooting ground, in the presence of the entire brigade, no one had seen what exactly happened since Hayk Kaleyan turned to the brigade after shooting the rifle. Consequently, everybody got into panic and failed to see Hayk Kaleyan committing a suicide.

The court proceeded with a few other questions on the health problems of the aggrieved party, particularly his enuresis and leg pain. The prosecuting party, Hayk Mkrtchyan, confirmed recording an incident of enuresis that received a quick reaction resulting in changing Hayk Kaleyan’s bedclothes. However, the prosecutor gave no definite answer on whether the aggrieved party had applied to the first-aid post and received no help.

In response to the appeal by the representative of the aggrieved party, Artur Sakunts, the prosecutor stated that based on the information provided by two witnesses during the proceedings on suffering violence during the preliminary investigation, a criminal case and preliminary investigation were initiated, and ultimately, the case proceedings were dismissed. The criminal case was initiated on the ground of the crime reported by Artur Sakunts. However, it was only during the trial that Artur Sakunts, who reported the crime, learnt that the case proceedings had been dismissed back in October or November of 2013 (the prosecutor could not accurately recall the month) and made a relevant statement. Note that the ruling to initiate a case was submitted to Artur Sakunts, who had reported the crime, only upon requesting the RA Prosecutor General to submit the decision on the crime report, on May 7, 2014, while the decision to dismiss the criminal case proceedings had already been issued.

The court obliged the Prosecutor to provide the person who had reported the crime with a copy of the final decision. Also, the court asked why the criminal case of violence by the military police officers had not been handled by the Special Investigation Service. In response to this question, the prosecutor stated that Prosecutor’s Office is an independent entity and has nothing to do with the Ministry of Defense. Then, the court attempted to find out the reasons for keeping the questioned case witnesses at the military police station for almost 10 days. However, the prosecutor Hayk Mkrtchyan left the question unanswered. The court suggested changing the established practice and taking as a guiding principle the case law decision of the European Court of Human Rights.

At the trial, the prosecutor Hayk Mkrtchyan also presented his response to the appeal of Santur Dombryan, the defendant’s advocate. He thereby stated that mocking is the mandatory feature of the objective perspective of Article 359 of the RA Criminal Code, and in this respect, asked the court to reject that appeal as well. However, the responses to the appeals above contained contradictory information. Particularly, in his response to the appeal of the representative of the aggrieved party’s successor, Artur, Sakunts, the prosecutor denied the regular nature of the degrading treatment, while in response to the advocate’s appeal, he stated that such treatment was regular.

Due to a previously scheduled hearing, the next hearing of the case was appointed at 12 p.m., June 13, 2014.