Father Says Armenian Cadet’s Suicide Note Is Forgery

Arkady Barseghyan, father of 19-year-old cadet Haykaz Barseghyan whose body was found on January 29 hanging from a chin-up bar in the sports ground of the Vazgen Sargsyan Military Institute in Yerevan, rules out possibility of his son to have committed suicide. The preliminary investigation of the case has been completed, and, according to the case materials, Barseghyan had left a suicide note at the scene that read: “Do not blame anyone for my death.”

Investigators informed the cadet's father of the note during the preliminary investigation; however, as Arkady Barseghyan told Epress.am, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that his son was brutally murdered. Forensic medical examination, specifically, has found multiple injuries on Barseghyan's body which could not have been self-inflicted. In addition, as stated by the father, graphological analysis of the note showed that there had been an attempt to forge the cadet's handwriting.

“My son wouldn't have done it. First of all, it was not his handwriting. Second, he was a very strong young man; third, my son had read the Bible and he knew that suicide is a sin. And forth, he did not have any problems at the Institute. He'd tell us not to phone him since phone calls were forbidden. He was that disciplined,” Arkady Barseghyan said.

The family had last seen Haykaz on January 7, when they were dropping their son off at the Institute after the winter holidays. That day, as noted by the father, the young man was in very high spirits. 

“The accused say they were my son's friends, they write us letters. That is not true. Haykaz was a loner.  My brother's son asked him if there were boys at the Institute who 'felt too comfortable.' Haykaz said there were, but he had no connection to them. I had personally told my son not to seek power, to stand by the weak and to only rely on himself,” the father said.

Note, four cadets of the same military institute, Vache Sahakyan, Movses Azaryan, Gnel Tevosyan, and Norik Sahakyan, were arrested on murder charges. Later Captain Artyom Avetisyan, an officer at the Vazgen Sargsyan Military Institute, was arrested and charged with abuse of power, transgression of authority or administrative dereliction.

Gnel Tevosyan is the son of Colonel Zarmik Markosyan, former Deputy Chief of the Institute's Armaments department.