Epress.am News from Armenia
Hrachya Gevorgyan, a convict in Nubarashen penitentiary institution in Yerevan, was unable to go down to the visiting room of the prison independently due to health problems, Arman Veziryan, monitor of the Helsinki Association of Armenia, said to Epress.am on Thursday, May 7. After a two-hour wait, the monitor was informed that the convict was unable to walk on his own and was demanding to be taken down on a stretcher or in a wheelchair. However, Gevorgyan was not provided with a wheelchair to go to the meeting with Veziryan due to a reference from the medical department of the penitentiary, according to which the convict had no health issues and was able to walk.
Earlier, the Human Rights NGO had reported that Gevorgyan, who is unable to speak or to walk, and suffers from acute respiratory failure, has been transferred from the Convicts' Hospital penitentiary institution to Nubarashen prison.
Recall, Gevorgyan was charged with taking his legal wife, Naira Harutyunyan, and her minor son as hostages and demanding ransom from Harutyunyan’s father for their release. He denied the charge. During the last 2 years he stated multiple times that the Mashtots Interior Affairs Department Criminal Investigation Division former Police Chief Artur Gevorgyan had threatened him, however that was not a sufficient grounds for the Special Investigatory Service to initiate a criminal case.
According to the defendant, Artur Gevorgyan had demanded to meet with him a few times, and met with him once, presenting himself to the prison staff as a relative of the defendant. According to Hrachya Gevorgyan, during the meeting the police representative said that he would not let the defendant get out of jail and keep him there until he dies.