New Preliminary Investigation will start
12:30, March 25, 2013 | News | Right to Fair Trial, Right to Life
The circumstances of 10-year old Derenik Gasparyan’s death as a result of improper supervision will be re-investigated. The Kotayk Region Court of Common Jurisdiction, presided by Judge Hrayr Sargsyan, took a decision to satisfy the claim of Arayik Zalyan, the representative of the successor of 10-year old Derenik Gasparyan, who died in a fight between the classmates by quashing the decision of Kotayk Region Investigation Department of RA Police investigator A. Baghdasaryan to close the case.
10-year old Derenik Gasparyan died on June 5, 2010, at Charentsavan School N 5 during the exam of Mathematics. The preliminary investigation body filed a criminal case with the grounds of bodily damage not containing features of light damage inflicted to Derenik Gasparyan’s health and was closed due to lack of criminality.
“On the one hand the preliminary investigation body found evidence of a beating but on the other hand it did not consider beating as the cause of death, which should have been,” explained Arayik Zalyan regarding the drawbacks of the preliminary investigation body. By satisfying Arayik Zalyan’s claim, the court draws attention to a number of circumstances regarding which the preliminary investigation body hadn’t conducted a complete, objective and versatile investigation whereby reaching at the wrong conclusion over 10-year old boy’s death.
“The preliminary investigation body has failed to reveal the duration of class supervisor Kakoyan’s missing time, her place of location and the circumstance of proper conduction of her job duties, the beating time of Derenik Gasparyan, the time the school maintenance staff arrived for help and the time for taking him to hospital” the decision states.
During the whole process of lodging a criminal case and compiling case-related materials, the preliminary investigation body didn’t unveil the existence of a medical center at school and the place of location of medical center staff during the incident as well as the circumstances of the possibility to save the child’s life in case relevant first aid was provided by the latter. Moreover, via the decision to close the criminal case the aggrieved party was deprived of the right to file a civil claim demanding compensation for inflicted material damage.
According to the successor’s representative, the preliminary investigation body didn’t undertake any measures regarding revelation of the identity of the person responsible for the death of Derenik Gaspayan, qualifying the incident as a crime and subjecting the perpetrator to liability. “Instead, the preliminary investigation body enrolled the State Inspectorate of Education of RA Ministry of Education and Science, an unauthorized party over the case, which in a letter stated that the incident wasn’t a consequence of conduction or misconduction of authorizations ascribed to the class supervisor, assistant principal, school principal or any member of the school staff and advisory bodies”, says Arayik Zalyan by adding that if there had been a pedagogue in the classroom, the fight would have been prevented and Derenik Gaspayan wouldn’t have been deprived of his life.