Epress.am News from Armenia
Detained by police on Nov. 5, 2012, Tavros Voskanyan was subjected to psychological pressure and forced to confess to breaking and entering, with law enforcement officials using the fact that his wife was pregnant to get a guilty confession from him. This news was conveyed to Epress.am by Voskanyan's wife, Armine Poghosyan.
According to Poghosyan, while her husband was writing his confession, she was subjected to various threats by police. "From the moment I entered the station, they were very aggressive with me; they threatened to arrest me; they said they will also charge and arrest me, and they will film it and broadcast it on [the police TV program] 02. Then they realized that I know the laws; their attitude changed slightly; the aggression stopped. In the middle of the night, deputy chief Papyan was trying to convince me that they'll release me on one condition: 'If you convince your husband to write a confession and with that the matter will be closed'," she described.
Poghosyan stressed that she repeatedly asked to see her husband, but law enforcement officials said that wasn't an option, and then in the middle of the night she was presented with a condition: to use any means necessary to persuade her husband to confess. Poghosyan said she had just learned that she was pregnant and at the police station she felt unwell, but this fact didn't stop police officers from persuading her but rather, became an additional lever of pressure.
"They forced me to put pressure on my husband using the fact of my pregnancy. Unfortunately, I don't remember their names because during the entire time no one thought to introduce himself; that's why I know neither their positions nor their first and last names. They kept me under stress at the police station from 11 am to the middle of the night, not taking into consideration my pregnancy. Then, when Papyan spoke with me and became convinced that I'm a normal woman and went to the chief and said it's not worth treating me this way, the tactics changed. In any case, they kept a pregnant woman hungry and thirsty for 14 hours at the station and didn't permit me to go home, not even paying attention to my request that I'm pregnant and I feel unwell. I was constantly asking to go home. They told me: 'It's possible that we'll arrest you too; we won't allow you to go home.' During this entire time I was under the supervision of two police officers, as if I was going to escape," she said.
Poghosyan was allowed to leave only after her husband, learning of how police are treating his wife, wrote his confession.
Note, Poghosyan lost the child.
The couple complained about the actions of the police. According to Poghosyan, the investigator investigating the case at the Special Investigation Service, Vekilyan, willingly listened to her and promised that he would provide unlimited time to write the statement. The investigator was later replaced, and the new investigator, named Poghosyan, didn't organize a confrontation or examination, then decided that the complaint is unfounded.
"They didn't even inform me that investigation of the case is closed. A number of distorted facts are present in the decision," she said. According to her, their arguments are completely absent in the decision. Voskanyan tried to appeal the decision from prison but was faced with obstacles.
"What's interesting is that on Nov. 29, the last day of the appeal, my husband's application was rejected twice, then he was warned, 'Sit down and stay in your place, if you want to be treated right. No application is going to come out of this institution.' I was forced to write the application and there is still no answer," she said.
Poghosyan is convinced that her husband is being framed because he was convicted for theft in the past. In truth, according to his wife, there is no evidence in any of the 6 incidents attributed to him. In one case, Poghosyan said, it was confirmed that the couple was in the city center when the theft occurred in the 16th district (outside of the center).
Starting this week, the Helsinki Association for Human Rights will be dealing with this case, granted by the accused's lawyer.