FOR ACQUITTED ARMENIAN SOLDIERS JUSTICE NOT QUITE DONE
By Emil Danielyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Dec 25 2006
The three Armenian soldiers who have been sensationally cleared
of murder charges will push for the prosecution of law-enforcement
officials and judges that nearly condemned them to a life behind bars,
it emerged on Monday.
Zaruhi Postanjian, a young lawyer who has led their prolonged battle
with the state security apparatus, said that her clients will seek
"material and moral compensation" for spending about three years in
jail on what human rights groups consider trumped-up charges. She said
the botched criminal investigation into the mysterious killings of
two other army conscripts has been accompanied by torture and other
gross violations of due process.
"Military police officers, military prosecutors and judges carried
out actions that are punishable by criminal law," she told RFE/RL.
"We will strive to ensure that they get a fair punishment for what
they did to these innocent men."
Razmik Sargsian, Musa Seropian and Arayik Zalian were set free on
Friday after being unexpectedly acquitted by Armenia’s Court of
Cassation. In a landmark ruling, it overturned life sentences handed
to them by a lower court and ordered a fresh inquiry into the deaths
of fellow soldiers Roman Yeghiazarian and Hovsep Mkrtumian.
All five men served in an army unit stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh’s
northern Mardakert district. The swollen corpses of Yeghiazarian
and Mkrtumian bearing traces of violence were recovered from a local
reservoir in January 2004. Several soldiers from their battalion were
promptly arrested by military prosecutors on suspicion of involvement
in the crime. One of them effectively testified that the killings
were committed by Captain Ivan Grigorian, the battalion’s Karabakh
Armenian commander.
The investigators, however, dismissed the testimony, releasing the
suspects and arresting Sargsian, Seropian and Zalian instead. They
claim that the three servicemen brutally murdered their comrades
following a brawl over a food parcel that was delivered to one of them.
The accusations are essentially based on Sargsian’s videotaped
"confession" made after fours days of interrogation in April 2004.
Sargsian has insisted all along that the confession was extracted
under duress and threats of rape. His face is clearly swollen and
bruised in video of the interrogation shown by the investigators
last year. According to Postanjian, the 21-year-old is now in need of
"serious medical treatment."
A court in Stepanakert dismissed the allegations of torture, also
made by Seropian and Zalian, sentencing all three men to 15 years
in prison in April 2005. Their protestations of innocence were also
rejected by the Armenian Court of Appeals that extended the jail
terms to life imprisonment last May. The extraordinary verdict was
strongly condemned by local and international human rights groups
before being struck down by the Court of Cassation. It was the first
known case of an Armenian court defying military prosecutors.
Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General on Monday refused to comment
on the unprecedented acquittal. "We will not react until we get a full
copy of the Court of Cassation verdict," a spokeswoman told RFE/RL.
Deputy Prosecutor-General Jahangirian, who was Armenia’s chief military
and oversaw the troubled inquiry until recently, also declined
comment. Jahangirian said he continues to believe that the three
soldiers are guilty moments before they were cleared of the charges.
Postanjian, who screamed in disbelief as she heard the ruling on
Friday, admitted that the development took her and the two other
defense attorneys by surprise. But she said they do not feel that
their mission has been fulfilled and will demand punishment for those
who have handled the high-profile case.
"Yes, the three young men are now free," said Postanjian. "But their
nearly three-year imprisonment must be compensated not only materially
but morally so that individuals working as military police officers,
prosecutors or judges do not commit such illegalities in the future."
That, according to her, means launching criminal proceedings against
five military prosecutors and other investigators that arrested
and interrogated Sargsian, allegedly without a warrant, as well
as the judges that convicted the three soldiers. Postanjian warned
that failure to do so would force the defense lawyers to file civil
lawsuits and take their case to the European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg.
"If Armenian courts do not compensate Razmik Sargsian, Musa Seropian
and Arayik Zalian for the material and moral damage inflicted on them
and if they fail to punish individuals who have committed those crimes,
then the European Court will certainly address the matter," she said.
Postanjian and the two other defense counsels, Ashot Atoyan and
Stepan Voskanian, are themselves facing a criminal investigation for
allegedly showing contempt for three judges of the Armenian Court
of Appeals that jailed the conscripts for life. The Office of the
Prosecutor-General opened a criminal case against the lawyers on
October 10, the day after the Court of Cassation, Armenia’s highest
body of criminal justice, agreed to consider their appeal against
the extremely controversial sentences.
Postanjian rejected the allegations as a "fabrication" aimed
at discouraging herself and her colleagues from challenging the
law-enforcement agency. She also repeated their suggestions that the
killings were the work of Captain Grigorian, the Karabakh Armenian
officer. "There are numerous clues leading to the commander of the
battalion," she said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
