The witnesses of a soldier’s death case subjected to violence
17:51, November 26, 2014 | News, Own news | Right to be free from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, Right to Fair Trial, Right to Life | Hayk Kaleyan
On November 24, 2014, the RA Criminal Court of Appeal, presided by judge A. Petrosyan, proceeded the hearing on the complaint by Arthur Sakunts representing Meruzhan Kaleyan. Note that the RA Criminal Court of Appeal examines the legality of the judicial act by the First Instance Court of Syunik Marz (Region), RA dated September 22, 2014.
Armen Bozoyan, a witness of the criminal case regarding conscript Hayk Kaleyan’s death at military unit in NGK, stated that he and three witnesses were kept in the military police for more than 10 days and were beaten, subjected to violence and forced to testify according to the investigator’s dictation.
Based on aforementioned, Hayk Kaleyan’s successor’s representative Arthur Sakunts initiated a crime based criminal case which was dropped later. It needs to be mentioned, that the appealing side learnt about the decision of dismissing the criminal case investigation only due to the request to receive information, and it never had the opportunity to examine the materials regarding the dismissal decision. This decision has been appealed according to procedures: first following the authoritative and then court norms, however the complaints were rejected and decision remained the same.
- Sakunts referred to RA Court of Criminal Appeal with an appeal requesting to overturn the judicial act of the inferior First Instance Court of RA Syunik region and send it back to the inferior court for a new examination.
The plaintiff presented to RA Court of Criminal Appeal statements about the improper treatment towards witnesses, locking them, as well as insufficient justification of the judicial act. You can learn more about the statements presented in the appeal below:
On November 24, 2014 RA Military Prosecution Office prosecutor A. Harutyunyan and RA MD first garrison investigative department investigator N. Avetisyan did not attend the court hearing. The court announced that A. Haurtyunyan was properly informed about the place and time of the court hearing and the court did not have any information regarding the notification of investigator N. Avetisyan. During the court hearing M. Kaleyan’s representative Arthur Sakunts motioned for receiving preliminary investigation materials of the case as those were not presented after preliminary investigation the pre-examination and he left the fact of the absence of the prosecutor and the investigator to judge’s consideration.
Presiding judge A. Petrosyan found that RA Military Prosecution Office Prosecutor A. Harutyunyan’s absence is a challenge for further examination of the case. Meanwhile, the court granted A. Sakunts’s motion finding that the investigation body N. Avetisyan should present the materials of the preliminary investigation providing the plaintiff with an opportunity to examine those.
Thus, the appeal was postponed until 15:00, December 8, 2014.