While returning home from work on November 17, 2008, “Hetq” Editor-in-Chief Edik Baghdasaryan was attacked by three individuals as he approached his car. From the start, certain news outlets pointed the finger at Vardan Ayvazyan, the former Minster of Nature Protection who was in Moscow at the time of the incident, as the one who put out a “contract” on Baghdasaryan. Today, Mr. Ayvazyan is President of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Economic Affairs.

Three days before the incident, an article by Edik Baghdasaryan regarding an aspect of the business dealings of Vardan Ayvazyan was reprinted in the “168 Zham” newspaper It must be pointed out that several other expository articles regarding Ayvazyan had appeared in “Hetq” prior to this last reprinted one, in which Baghdasaryan uncovered how the former minister was able to get control of a  portion of Armenia’s raw material wealth, and in several cases gifting mines to his relatives and close acquaintances. In his very first press conference after the attack, Vardan Ayvazyan pointed to this series of articles and declared that, “If I harbored such an intention I would have done it long ago” and utterly denied any connection to the assault on Baghdasaryan.

In addition to the score of top government officials who condemned the attack, including Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan who paid Baghdasaryan a visit in the hospital, President Serzh Sargsyan issued a stern directive to law enforcement – “Expose the authors of the attack as quickly as possible and call to account all guilty parties”. It was announced that the Police Chief himself would oversee the investigation and top ranking police brass claimed that based on their “gut beliefs” the case would soon be solved.

At the time, taking into account the modus operandi of the police, it was hard to understand how these “gut beliefs” were derived at. The police gave assurances that, “an investigative unit comprised of the department’s most experienced employees would carry out all required operational/investigatory measures”. Immediately after the assault, those “police experts” carried out an inspection of the crime scene and came up empty-handed. This, despite the fact that some 6 hours later, Edik Baghdasaryan’s son found his father’s car keys, photo camera and a spent gas cartridge fired by a random passerby would witnessed the assault and sought to ward off the attackers.

Furthermore, Edik Baghdasaryan was able to get a partial look at the face of one of his assailants but law enforcement officials never paid the fact much attention.

“During the fight, I hit one the guys and he fell back, some light hitting his face. I thought that if I saw the face again soon I would definitely recognize it. After a while that image faded from my memory,” says Baghdasaryan, adding that, “Law enforcement never followed up. Now I understand that they never needed to do so because they were looking for that guy, Karen Harutyunyan, from day one.”

Edik Baghdasaryan’s assailants continued to beat him even while unconscious and they only fled the scene when a passing supervisor from the police training academy fired a shot into the air. It was this supervisor, Norik Avetisyan, who recognized one of the assailants as a former resident of his courtyard. Based on the supervisor’s written testimony, a composite sketch of that resident, Karen Harutyunyan, was compiled and a search was launched to track him down. In this case, the term “search” is applied rather loosely.

Karen Harutyunyan’s defense lawyer, Vahagn Manoukyan, states that eight days after the incident his client was summoned to appear at police headquarters and was immediately arrested after arriving there. Karen’s mother, Marineh Markosyan, stated to one of the papers that on the very day of the incident she was in the Erebuni Hospital hooked up to an intravenous drip and that Karen was at her side the entire time. According to the “Aravot” newspaper testimony corroborating this had been given by her doctor and nurse. Our information indicates that this alibi is bogus and that it has already been disproven during the preliminary investigation. Furthermore, Karen Harutyunyan refused to offer testimony which is very surprising given the existence of an alibi. He merely declared that he had no connection to the assault.

At the preliminary inquest, it was recommended that Karen Harutyunyan be charged with “Causing medium degree bodily harm with intent either individually or by an organized group” (Criminal Code, Article 113, Section 2, Point 3). His lawyer, Vahagn Manoukyan states that no basis for such a charge exists, “given that the findings of the court medical examination are dated December 8. Thus, charges were recommended against an individual when it still wasn’t clear if the injuries suffered by the victim were serious, medium or light in nature”.

For a few consecutive days we tried to arrange a meeting with attorney Vahagn Manoukyan in the hope of getting some clarification regarding certain outstanding issues. Claiming that he was busy, Mr. Manoukyan kept putting off any such meeting for the following day. Finally, on March 8, he chose a place and time for our meeting. The meeting never took place. As on prior occasions, we were only able to get in touch with him by calling from a phone number unknown to him. “You’ll forgive me, but I had to take my grandmother to the hospital and couldn’t make the meeting,” he told us, promising to see us the following day. The next day he once again broke his promise.

The week before, the law periodical “Hetaknnutyun Iravunk” had written that in reality the investigators had purposefully issued an incorrect evaluation of Karen Harutyunyan’s actions when in fact his actions totally corresponded to Section 2, Article 34-112, of the RoA Criminal Code – “Criminal attempt to cause serious premeditated physical injury”, which was carried out with exceptional brutality by a group of individuals or an organized group (in this case the assailants would be facing a 5-10 jail sentence). Furthermore, the author of the article concluded that even though a search for K. Harutyunyan had been declared, “due to the intervention of a certain powerful individual the police didn’t arrest him and allowed him to show-up voluntarily in order that in the future the court would issue a relatively light punishment for the charges now brought against him .

In August, 2007, the Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun Court of First Instance had already issued an amazingly light sentence to Karen Harutyunyan. One year earlier during a quarrel, Karen had stabbed Narek Martirosyan four times with a knife, causing life threatening serious injuries with premeditation. The injured party never participated in the court case and, in a strange fashion; he was hardly mentioned in the court’s verdict. One of the witnessed mentioned that he was about thirty years-old.

In the verdict handed down by Judge V. Abrahamyan it is particularly stressed that Karen Harutyunyan “had experienced the bitterness of the killing of his father, uncle and grandmother and, being deprived of one parent, was reared by his one set of grandparents. Due to the discussions of revenge and killings he always carried a knife in his pocket.” From his crime he was sentenced to three years in jail but the court decided to suspend sentence and issued a one month of probation. Thus, Karen Harutyunyan remained free as a bird.

The complaint presented by the Chief Prosecutor was denied by the Court of Appeals. But the Court of Cassation overturned the decision of the Appeals Court and sent the case back for review with a new team.

At the core of his complaint the prosecutor underlined the fact that the accused only confessed his guilt at the end of the court case, that he wasn’t employed and that, given a set of inexplicable circumstances, he was never called for military service. Thus, he called into question letting the accused off without any punishment and requested a more severe sentence of jail time.

However, the Appeals Court refused the complaint for a second time, pointing out that the defense team had presented a document verifying that the accused had indeed been called for military service.

Karen Harutyunyan, born January, 1989, should have been conscripted into the army in the spring of 2007. However, for some unknown reason according to a notice presented in court, he was conscripted on November 5, a few days before the Court of Appeals handed down its sentence. Furthermore, a very positive character report issued by the “N” military unit command, based on just a few days of service, was presented to the court on Harutyunyan’s behalf – “As a serviceman, K. Harutyunyan has comported himself with composure, has strived to execute the orders of his commanders correctly and in a timely fashion and has displayed a willingness to master the requirements of the military service code…He is devoted to serving his country, is morally stable…”

By leaving the sentence of the First Instance Court unchanged, the Appeals Court took into account “the expediency of granting the accused of continuing military service”.

What is noteworthy is that just a short time afterwards Karen Harutyunyan was freed from military service due to a document that surfaced attesting to the fact that he was suffering from certain psychological problems.

On February 27, 2009, Police Chief Alik Sargsyan noted that they had transferred the accused, Karen Harutyunyan, to the psychiatric ward for examination. “He previously had such documentation and the investigative body was obliged to send him for further testing. The case was proceeding and it appeared to be near completion, we were already preparing our indictment, but yesterday, on the instructions of the Chief Prosecutor, the case was transferred over to the Yerevan Department of Investigations.

“If they don’t find those who gave the orders for the attack I don’t think it makes much sense to punish this guy. In the end, you’ll always find someone to do your dirty work,” says Edik Baghdasaryan and notes that while he wasn’t giving the investigator the names of any suspects in the beginning, he now has grounds for doing so now.

“Karen Harutyunyan and his mother are on intimate terms with the family of Vardan Ayvazyan. If Karen Harutyunyan is one of my assailants such a coincidence is more than unlikely. I don’t rule out the possibility that Vardan Ayvazyan or his circle of guys is behind the group,” says Edik Baghdasaryan.

It still remains unclear why the preliminary investigation conducted by the Kentron Police Department has failed to satisfy the Prosecutor’s Office. “The General Prosecutor, as the body supervising the preliminary investigation, while examining the case materials has deemed it expedient to transfer the case to the Yerevan Department of Investigations. I cannot say anything further,” notes Sona Trouzyan, the General Prosecutor’s Press Secretary.

During the above-mentioned press conference the police chief gave assurances that the preliminary investigation would be completed in a matter of 10-15 days and that the case would be sent to the courts. That deadline has come and went and it would appear that the case will actually appear before the courts in the near future, exposing neither the underlying motives of the crime nor the identities of the other two assailants or those who ordered the attack.

The police are refusing to offer any information regarding the case arguing that “the preliminary investigation is underway”. According to our information, law enforcement personnel not only haven’t interrogated Vardan Ayvazyan but generally have no intention of doing so. This is an individual whose name is again linked to 20 year-old Karen Harutyunyan “quite by happenstance”. Karen’s mother, Marineh Markosyan, just happened to be the private doctor to the son of the former Minister of Nature Protection and the two families are quite close.

We also tried to get some statement from Vardan Ayvazyan himself regarding these chance “coincidences”. Getting clued in by his assistant and driver as to the topic of our desired discussion, he began to hem and haw. A bit earlier though, his driver had told us that, “Vardan Ayvazyan was sick in bed”.