Epress.am News from Armenia
Sevan resident Sevak Voskanyan has addressed a letter to Armenia’s General Prosecutor Artur Davtyan, in which claims he was beaten up and tortured at a police station. Voskanyan has now gone into hiding, and his relatives turned to Nikol Pashinyan, a lawmaker from the opposition Yelk alliance, asking him to publish the letter. Pashinyan subsequently posted the letter on his personal Facebook page.
Read the English translation of the letter below:
– I’m reporting to you know that several days ago Sevan police officer Vahag Mikayelyan called from the 098-78-10-17 number and told me to go meet with him. We met, and Vahag told me: ‘Your old friend Hayk Avanesyan has been caught, be careful because something could happen to you, too. I’ll let you know.’ One or two days later, on August 18 at 10:30am, Vahag called me from a different number and again asked me to meet him.
We agreed to meet by the mobile gas station next to the Sevan railway. When I got there Vahag wasn’t there, so I called him to ask where he was and he said he’d be there in 3 minutes. A bit later a black car stopped next to me – it was a corolla camry [sic] – and two people clothed entirely in black and wearing black masks got out of it and attacked me. They hit me on my shoulders, handcuffed me and put me in the car, hitting me on my head. Then they pushed my neck down to my knees, swearing at me and insulting me.
I told them: ‘Guys, please don’t hit me, let me breathe and understand what’s happening.’ The one sitting next to the driver turned around and told me not to call them ‘guys.’ Then he squeezed my head between his palms and hit it on the car seat. They’d ask me whether I knew why they had caught me, I asked why and they said there were 5 corpses on me. They were hitting me and swearing at me the entire time. They talked to someone on the phone on the way and told him: ‘Dear Arakelyan, we’ll get there soon.”
They took me to the Gavar police department and then to some office. There the masked ones began hitting me – on my shoulders, on my back; they were slapping me. Then they took me to another office; some 5 or 6 people gathered there and began asking whether I knew why they had brought me there.
One of those present who was in civilian clothes presented another one as Arakel and said: ‘You know who he is? He is the department’s Arakelyan; he lays down even thugs, ruins them and cookes up really serious cases on them.’ Then Arakelyan himself told me: ‘Tell me the truth. Remember the May of 2008 and tell me about the incident with your friend Roman.’
On that day [Roman] was knifed. I told him that I had nothing to do with it, that I had already been questioned about that by a criminal investigator. At that moment the masked ones came at me and began hitting and cursing me. Arakelyan said: ‘This one doesn’t know us very well. That’s fine; the guys will work a couple of rounds on him, then they’ll pull down his pants and smash a tube inside his ass, then he’ll tell us.’ I was already very scared, so I asked them to leave me alone with Arakelyan.
Everyone left the room; Arakelyan swore by his father’s name that Hayk had confessed and was now making me out to be the organizer. I told him Hayk would never do that, that it was a lie. Arakelyan got enraged and said: ‘I’ll tell the masked ones to smash a tube inside your ass.’ I was intimidated, I didn’t know what to do, and he was continuing to pressure me. He said that Hayk had already turned on me and why I wouldn’t want to get back at him.
He then said: ‘Your cousin Edgar was the one who introduced you to Hayk, and it were you two who did it. I got scared and said that my cousin had done it and that Hayk had nothing to do with it. I said this because Hayk is dead. Arakelyan said: ‘If you want to get out and see your child again, you have to name Hayk so he turns into a mummy in jail.’
I was scared, but I also believed his words and said that I would do it. Then he began dictating me what to say. Then 2 investigators from Sevan came to the department – Petrosyan and some Hovo. Arakelyan told them that I had confessed and began telling them how everything had happened and asking me whether it was correct.
After that I was taken back to the Gavar station. The investigators never talked to me personally. Investigator Hovo typed up Arakelyan’s story on a computer and gave it to me to sign as my own testimony. I wrote that it was all true and signed it.
Dear Mr. Prosecutor, that testimony is a lie; it was coerced into signing it through blackmail, beatings and psychological pressure.
I was held at the police station for 10-11 hours, without any food. They did not let me call anyone. Only at the end of the questioning was I allowed to make a call with the investigator’s phone. I ask you to punish all those people who subjected me to these unlawful actions.
Voskanyan
19.08.2017