Epress.am News from Armenia
One year after being subjected to humiliating treatment and beatings by Armenian police, Alik Zakharyan, 32, resident of the town of Martuni of Armenia's Gegharkunik province, is still unable to recover from the impacts of the violence. In an interview with Epress.am Zakharyan's mother, Sonik Sahakyan, said her son has constant fears and nightmares, and suffers from insomnia.
Alik, as stated by the mother, was tortured on three different occasions: twice during military service in 2001, and again in summer 2014 by military police officers, as well as the employees of Martuni police division.
Yerevan – Hadrut – Garrison Hospital
In 2001, Alik Zakharyan was drafted to the Yerevan unit of Armenian military's special forces. Shortly after her son's conscription, Sahakyan said, she met with the commander of the military unit, Artur Simonyan, who demanded $500 from the woman threatening to otherwise send her son to Nagorno-Karabakh. The woman told Simonyan she did not have that kind of money and asked for time to try and find the sum. After returning to Martuni, Sahakyan decided to sell her apartment, but first she decided to consult with her son. During another visit to Yerevan she was informed that Alik had been sent to Karabakh. The woman later found out that, after her meeting with Simonyan, the commander invited Zakharyan into his office and, without any explanation, hit him in the head with a chair. Afterwards, Alik told his mother he had lost consciousness from the blow and woke up in the infirmary when his head was being sutured.
The young conscript's humiliation continued at one of the military units in Hadrut (NKR) when infirmary head Yerjanik Hambardzumyan threw a pill on the floor and ordered Zakharyan to pick it up and swallow. When Zakharyan refused, Hambardzumyan started beating the soldier.
When her son was transported to Yerevan, Sonik Sahakyan said, his face so badly swollen she could hardly recognize him. However, they didn't want to file a complaint since the military unit had frightened them saying Alik would be subjected to even worse treatment when he was sent back to the unit after his recovery.
In Yerevan Garrison Hospital the soldier was diagnosed with organic brain syndrome: “The doctor told us it was an incurable disease. He said 'How can [Alik] serve? They lied so you wouldn't complain',” the woman said.
She then filed a complaint against the head of the infirmary, and criminal proceedings were initiated; however, the court ruled that at the time of the incident Yerjanik Hambardzumyan was in a mentally unstable condition and sentenced him to forced psychiatric treatment. Sahakyan said they had not even been informed of the process.
“A Turkish Saboteur”
Her son's nightmare, the mother told, repeated 13 years after the incidents in the army. In July 2014, Alik went to the cemetery not far from Martuni to clear the graves of their relatives from weeds. On the way, he was stopped by a group of police officers, among them – employees of military police, who called Alik “Turkish saboteur.” Later, recounting the details of the incident to his mother, Zakharyan said he told the law enforcement officers who he was and where he was from; however, the officers did not listen and proceeded to humiliating and torturing him. According to the mother, they demanded that Alik have a drink from a dirty stream, twisted his hands, hit him, and took to the police station.
“The criminals ripped my son's pants to see whether he was circumcised. However, in the case materials the scene is described totally differently: it's written that the trousers were worn out and that's why they had been torn. But they were new and made from firm fabric,” the mother claimed. She said Alik was released after spending about 6 hours in custody.
The criminal case launched on the woman's complaint was subsequently closed. Sahakyan stressed there were numerous violations in the preliminary investigation. Her son, specifically, was sent to a forensic medical examination 11 days later, when some of the traces of the violence had already disappeared. This gave investigators an opportunity to claim that the young man had only sustained minor injuries, while witnesses, who were also police officers, said Zakharyan resisted the arrest.
Sonik Sahakyan appealed against the decision to close the case; however, both the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal considered it legitimate.
According to the woman during one of the hearings judge Ararat Petrosyan asked prosecutor Aram Khachatryan why [the defendants] had made Zakharyan drink from a dirty stream, to which the prosecutor replied saying “They thought he was a Turkish saboteur.”
Sahakyan intends to appeal the verdict at the Court of Cassation. And although, the woman said, she does not trust the justice system after everything that has happened, she is prepared to fight in every possible way to restore her son's violated rights.
Video in Armenian