Mothers Cry Out During Trial Investigating Army Officer’s Death

The trial in the case of rifle platoon commander Artak Nazaryan, who died suddenly while serving during peacetime on Jul. 27, 2010, took place at the Court of First Instance of Shengavit Community of Yerevan today.

At the start of the trial, Judge Samvel Mardanyan overruled the motion for withdrawal put forth by the victim’s legal representative, Helsinki Association for Human Rights representative Ruben Martirosyan.

Martirosyan then informed the judge that 25 days ago they submitted a statement on a crime to the RA General Prosecutor’s Office. According to Martirosyan, the prosecutor found it advisable that the court examining the case take into account examination of that statement. The legal representative then presented the contents of the statement:

“When I challenged the accuser, I also said that a crime was carried out during the investigation. There are facts that Artak Nazaryan’s body was found not elevated, but entrenched, which was an official statement. As for why or how the body appeared elevated is incomprehensible: it is a riddle that we are unable to solve,” he said.

Martirosyan also spoke of another incident, calling what happened a crime.

“Investigator on the case Petrosyan goes to the scene of the incident and notes that they have found blood-like traces on the cliff, but he doesn’t take a sample to then understand whether it is actually blood — either human or animal blood. There are several violations also noted in the statement which the investigative body committed,” he said.

Taking this into consideration, Martirosyan motioned for investigators Sargis Madatyan and Levon Petrosyan be included in the case as witnesses.

However, the judge decided to discuss the motion at another stage of the trial. Then, Artak Nazaryan’s mother, Hasmik Hovhannisyan, began to give a testimony in court. Describing her family and her children’s higher education, Nazaryan’s mother became emotional and was unable to continue her testimony. The judge then announced a recess.

Hovhannisyan continued to cry in the courtroom, which prompted mothers of other killed soldiers to cry and shout, “Whoever raised a hand on our children, god will give them a deserved punishment!”

“This state won’t grant anymore amnesty; let it not give amnesty to those criminal dogs… You’re all connected to each other,” shouted another mother of a killed soldier.

Photo: Arman Veziryan