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The RA Special Investigative Service responded to HCA Vanadzor’s crime report that Hrachya Gevorgyan, former detainee at ‘Nubarashen’ penitentiary facilities, was beaten by the staff members of the penitentiary facilities only 6 months later, when the detainee was already dead.

The Organization filed a crime report to the RA Special Investigation Service back on December 14, 2016 based on the publication on www.newsline.am website.

The RA Special Investigation Service first sent the crime report to the RA MoJ Penitentiary Department that considered lawful using physical force by the staff members of the penitentiary facilities and insisted that it aimed to seize a forbidden item. And according to R. Hovhannisyan, Deputy Head of the RA MoJ Penitentiary Department, that served the basis for rejecting initiation of criminal proceedings on the materials prepared by the Erebuni Division of the RA Police.

On December 26, 2016 HCA Vanadzor applied to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office to assign the case to the RA SIS and it was only then that the RA SIS examined it.

While the RA MoJ Penitentiary Department did not deny the use of physical force, in its response of June 6, 2017 the RA SIS noted that no evidence on using violence was obtained and “moreover, the preliminary investigation denied any use of violence against Hrachya Gevorgyan.”

Moreover, A. Zhamkochyan, Senior Investigator for High-Profile Cases at the Department for Examination of Corruption, Organized Crimes and Official Crimes, RA Special Investigative Service, also refers to decision of Erebuni Division of the RA Police on refusing to initiate criminal proceedings and insists that no criminal prosecution may be carried out in this case.

Senior investigator A. Zhamkochyan’s response reads as follows: “The existence of a valid decision of the investigating body, investigator and prosecutor on refusing to initiate criminal prosecution on the same charges against a person is a fact excluding any criminal proceedings and criminal prosecution.”

It should be noted that passing the case by the RA SIS to the Penitentiary Department and then using its conclusions as basis for its own decisions might not result in an effective investigation. The state is under a positive obligation to carry out an effective and efficient investigation into any report on torture that is the case here. By its ruling of February 12, 2010, the RA Court of Cassation also expressed its position on such cases when examining the legality of the decision of investigator at Mashtots Investigation Division on the use of violence by the staff members of Mashtots Division of the Police: “The investigator examined a case related to his colleagues; therefore, from the very start he was a party interested in the case and had no opportunity to carry out an impartial investigation.”

The Court of Cassation reiterated that: “Any complaints against the body responsible for preliminary investigation must be examined by an independent body that must not be linked to the body responsible for preliminary investigation and must be separate from it.”

In her interview, Hrachya Gevorgyan’s defense attorney Nina Karapetyants told us that for already 2 months there was no progress in the criminal proceedings initiated on the fact of breaking Hrachya Gevorgyan’s nose in the penitentiary facilities in September of 2016. The investigators even suggested closing the criminal proceedings after Hr. Gevorgyan’s death. Two more cases initiated on Hrachya Gevorgyan’s death and on his report on poisoning him 2 years ago at the Convicts’ Hospital are still in progress and are processed by the RA Special Investigation Service.

According to N. Karapetyants, initially there was a tendency to hide away the criminal cases involving the staff members of the penitentiary facilities, but the attorney sees no such tendency any longer and, in her opinion, such delays aim to calm the passions.