Armenia’s Prosecutor General has rescinded a December, 2010 decision made by the Director of the Kosh Penitentiary not to launch a criminal case regarding the assault on jailed newspaper and opposition political activist Nikol Pashinyan and has filed charges based on RA Criminal Code Article 118. In particular, by discussing the legality and justification of the decision on rejecting the initiation of the criminal case by the materials prepared based on the announcement of the convict N. Pashinyan made on November 11, 2010 it has turned out that N. Pashinyan informed F. Martirosyan the acting responsible executive of the shift group of the “Kosh” penitentiary and the group employees S. Avetisyan and S. Grigoryan that at about 02:50 a.m. he had been attacked by the masked soldiers of the Special Purpose Unit and had been beaten and got bodily injuries. Materials were prepared in the “Kosh” penitentiary based on the reports and announcements, explanations were taken and forensic, forensic trace and forensic biological examination were carried out. The investigation body found out that the convict N. Pashinyan had not been beaten, there was not any case of crime in the materials and on December 30, 2010 made a decision to reject the initiation of the criminal case. On January 27, 2011 the convict N. Pashinyan applied to the Prosecutor General appealing the decision made by the investigation body. After checking the legality and justification of the decision it has turned out that the materials were prepared incompletely, the demands of the Article 17, part 3 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code were not carried out and the investigation body didn’t undertake appropriate operative intelligence and procedural measures as a result of which a decision was made which is liable to elimination. The reasons are the following: the materials didn’t reveal the number of the convicts according to the stated quantity in the 2nd lodging of the 3rd hostel of the penitentiary that day, not all the convicts gave explanations and the claims made by N. Pashinyan were not checked properly. On November 15, 2010 N. Pashinyan insisted that he had been attacked, beaten and got bodily injuries. The investigation body didn’t evaluate the statement of the convict legally which included the elements of crime prescribed by the RA Criminal Code Article 118. Prosecutor General's Office of the RA reports that based on the above-mentioned facts a criminal case has been initiated by the decision of the RA Prosecutor General A. Hovsepyan and the preliminary investigation of the criminal case has been tasked to the Investigation Division of Aragatsotn region of the RA Police General Investigation Department.