Epress.am News from Armenia
Russian-language news site Russian Reporter yesterday published a WikiLeaks US cable in which former US Ambassador to Armenia John M. Evans met with the Prosecutor General of Armenia Aghvan Hovsepyan on Aug. 8 about allegations of investigative misconduct and abuse in connection with a human trafficking case. Note that Evans was the US Ambassador to Armenia from 2004–2006.
The case in question involved three prostitutes from Gyumri (Armenia’s second-largest city) who said they were “trafficked from Armenia to Turkey via Georgia with fraudulent documents, and coerced and deprived of payment under threat of arrest.”
The three prostitutes were interviewed by investigators from the prosecutor general’s office on July 28, after which they “stormed fuming into the Yerevan branch of Hope and Help, an NGO that assists prostitutes and trafficking victims, to complain about the conduct of investigators Armen Gasparyan and Aristakes Yeremyan,” writes Evans in the cable.
Evans, along with the deputy ambassador and an assistant, met with the women who said they had gone to Turkey in 2005, knowing they would be working as prostitutes:
“Mkrtchyan [one of the prostitutes] said that, shortly after the women arrived in Turkey, they were deported to Batumi, on Georgia’s Black Sea coast. She said the pimp had connections to a trafficking ring at the Georgian-Turkish border. The ring smuggled the women back into Turkey one at a time, pasting each woman’s photo into a Georgian passport, then bringing the passport back across the border into Georgia once the woman was through, and repeating the process with the next one. The prostitutes said that, once they were back in Turkey, the pimp told them they could not leave, as they would be arrested if border guards saw the deportation stamps in their Armenian passports.
“Both Madoyan [one of the three prostitutes] and Mkrtchyan said they had been paid only a fraction of what was owed to them.
“Mkrtchyan and Madoyan claimed PG office investigators Gasparyan and Yeremyan told them to recant the testimonies they had given to the police. Madoyan also claimed Yeremyan struck her in the face during a July 31 meeting. Among their complaints were that the investigators told them to say the trafficker owed them less money than she actually did, and accused them of filing police statements in order to blackmail the alleged trafficker,” writes Evans.
“The former US ambassador to Armenia goes on to say that there were some discrepancies in the women’s stories and the mental competence of one of the victims was questionable; they are, however, persuaded “that the basic facts of the case are accurate. Investigating authorities must take such allegations seriously, and not dismiss them out of hand because they find the victims distasteful.”
The three US diplomats met with Hovsepyan to outline the seriousness of the case; however, Hovsepyan “smirked unmistakably” then spent a few minutes listing the Armenian government’s achievements on trafficking, before addressing the case at hand:
“Hovsepyan said he had personally investigated the allegations, and said that the case notes made it clear that the prostitutes had been lying. He characterized them as ‘unconscientious and non-compliant,’ saying derisively that they were ‘governed by different interests in their daily lives.’
“He kept repeating that the prostitutes were angry that the investigators were not helping them recover their unpaid salaries from the pimp, and that money had motivated the allegations. He robustly defended Yeremyan. (NOTE: This is not surprising, given information we have received from Anti-TIP Unit Senior Prosecutor Armen Boshnaghyan (please protect) that the investigator has Hovsepyan’s full support (ref B). END NOTE.) During his impassioned defense of Yeremyan, Hovsepyan cited an Armenian proverb which, roughly translated, means ‘May God keep us from the evil that comes from prostitutes.'”
The cable ends with the Armenian prosecutor general agreeing to launch an internal investigation of the allegations:
“Finally, Hovsepyan agreed to launch an internal investigation of the allegations. He said he would solicit the NGO’s input. But he continued to sing Yeremyan’s praises and to accuse the prostitutes of lying. He also mentioned that Yeremyan had asked repeatedly to be moved out of the Anti-TIP Unit, and that he would consider granting that request.”