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Ararat Davtyan

A Grieving Father Cries Out, “Let Them Find My Son’s Killers”

The specialist registered this but didn’t notice that the fingers were bluish. In his words, this was a shadow. For Adamyan our photos don’t serve as a basis. He says we also photographed the corpse and that our camera costs $1,800 and that it is correct. But they photographed the body after it had been cosmetically touched-up.”

The day after the incident a criminal case was opened in the Military Prosecutor’s Office at the Sevan Army HQ. The case file reads that at around 11pm on August 30th T. Ohandjanyan was electrocuted when he came into contact with a telescopic wire at the army post’s communications center. For displaying careless behaviour in the matter charges are sought against Captain Rustam Asatryan and NCO Karen Tovmasyan. They have not been arrested as a detention measure but face 3-6 years imprisonment if found guilty of said charges. Later on the investigation was transferred to the Central Military Prosecutor and afterwards to the Special Cases Investigation Division of the Ministry of Defense. However, the electrocution theory posited by the Police from the start was never modified.

Despite the fact that the family of the victim made several charges against Investigator Harutyun Shahnazaryan for “illegal practices and skewing the facts”, he declared the case successfully closed and passed it over to the General Judicial Court of Gegharkunik Marz. It was only then that the Ohandjanyan family was allowed to familiarize themselves with the details of the case.

A study of the five volume case load revealed some interesting facts which give weight to the conviction of the bereaved parents that, “They murdered Tigran by beating him and made it look like a case of electrocution after the fact.”

It turns out that on August 27th, 3 days before Tigran Ohandjanyan’s death, a service inspection linked to “an incident that had taken place” was performed. There is also a report in the affair according to which on February 27, 2008, Investigator Shahnazaryan confirms that he received 43 pages of copies from the findings of the service inspection conducted regarding the death of Junior Sergeant T. Ohandjanyan.” But the Investigator is known to have sent only 37 pages of the service inspection findings to the court.

“Where are the remaining pages and what did they contain? We haven’t been able to find out anything and the pages we have don’t say anything about what type of investigation was carried out, says Gohar Sargsyan, Tigran’s mother. I spoke to my son on that very day, August 27th. His voice didn’t sound right and he tried to fool me by saying that he had a cold. I asked him if he had gotten into a fight and he told me, no, I wasn’t a pat of that fight. Essentially, some kind of brawl took place that day and they killed my son three days later.”

“In addition, the Prosecutor asked that the court obtain the minutes of telephone call 8. While the request was sustained the details of the call don\\t appear in the caseload. With those in hand it would be possible to specify the time of my son’s death.” adds S. Ohandjanyan. In reply to his inquiry Viva Cell stated, “The minutes of the requested telephone numbers have been sent to the Military Prosecutor.”

“They do whatever they want and don’t fear anything, continues Mr. Ohandjanyan. In the case load there’s also the explanation given by Gnel Manukyan, the Prosecutor at the Sevan Army HQ. The Investigator asks him why he waited 38 days to send the telescopic wire and 56 days to send the deceased clothes to forensics. His answer was that he was busy. When asked why he didn’t make a timely on-site investigation he answered, it was dark at the time. The Investigator found these answers to be satisfactory.”

Tigran’s mother says, “All this is just too silly. Even the expert stated that even if that wire contained any current it couldn’t have been more than 25-30 volts. Such a charge wouldn’t be sufficient to kill a man weighing 110 kilos.”

The 3rd and 5th volumes of the criminal caseload contain photos of various military clothing. In the case of two of the photos it is stated that these were the clothes worn by Tigran on the day of the incident.

“In the beginning, when after my several complaints Gnel Manukyan sent my son’s clothes to forensics, Hasmik Hovhannesyan, the expert, could find no tears in them. All the while, however, there was a notation in the records that there were tears in the clothes under the armpits. When I started to complain that the clothes presented to forensics weren’t my son’s size, a new inquiry was announced to be headed by Erik Babayan. Now, either the size of the clothes has increased or they made tears in the armpits.” states S. Ohandjanyan, who wonders how such a case could be presented to the court.

The case began on June 2, 2008, Judge Yurik Iskoyan presiding. The family of the victim only received word of the court case 17 days later, on June 19. “I called up the Judge’s assistant and asked why they did such a thing. I told him; don’t you want us to participate? He answered that it was an oversight. But the next notice we got was on June 27th and stated that the trial would commence on June 3rd. If they can’t even get their notices correct, what can we expect from the trial itself?” asks Mr. Ohandjanyan.

The second notice states that if the Ohandjanyans fail to appear in court “they will be taken into custody”. Then, on August 20th, the court decided to conduct the investigation in the absence of the family. Finally, in compliance with the appeal of the Ohandjanyans, a new court session was scheduled in which the family did participate.

“At first we didn’t want to participate in the trail since they are judging innocent men charged with totally different crimes. But later we decided to demand an exhumation from the court since when my son was lying on the table in our house I saw with my own eyes that his chin was broken and the upper set of teeth were missing. The specialist though had stated that the upper teeth were intact. So let them now conduct an exhumation of the body and based on the findings let them state if such an electrical current exists that is know to make the teeth fly out of one’s mouth and cause tears in clothing. If they can prove such a thing the let them put those two men on trial. If not, let them find my son’s killers.” says Gohar Sargsyan.

The Ohandjanyan family has requested a 10 day adjournment in the trial so that they can hire the services of legal counsel.

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