Sasna Tsrer Members Deprived of Free Movement, Lawyers Claim

The mobility rights of several members of the Sasna Tsrer (Daredevils of Sasun) armed group – Artur Soghomonyan, Armen Lambaryan, Aram Hakobyan – have been restricted at the Convicts’ Hospital penitentiary in Yerevan, Hakobyan’s lawyer Davit Gyurjyan told Epress.am on Thursday, citing lawyer Mushegh Shushanyan.

According to Gyurjyan, penitentiary officials have installed locks on the prisoners’ cell doors, depriving them of the opportunity to use the washbasin and the toilet placed in the corridor. Khachatur Gichyan, a 70-year-old man who has been charged with aiding the armed group, has also been locked inside his cell, Gyurjyan added.

Mushegh Shushyan had earlier also reported that the Sasna Tsrer gunmen were being kept in inhuman conditions: “They are suffocating [inside the cells] because the cells are not being ventilated.”

Despite the lawyers’ concerns, a spokesperson for the Penitentiary Department of the Ministry of Justice has told Armtimes.com that prisoners at the Convicts’ Hospital were being kept in accordance with the Armenian law “On Holding the Arrested and Detained Persons.” The Sasna Tsrer members, the official added, “are receiving proper medical treatment and are held in satisfactory sanitary and hygienic conditions.”