Hetq has been unable to get a list from Armenia’s Penitentiary Service (a separate subdivision of the Ministry of Justice) of those companies which have won contracts to make repairs to the country’s prisons between 2013 and 2018 and in the first nine months of 2019.

Hetq recently wrote about the poor state of repairs in the country’s penitentiaries.

After waiting 54 days, Hetq received incomplete information on the matter.

"Complete documentation on penitentiary repairs prior to 2016 has been confiscated by Armenian investigative bodies. Thus, we can only provide financial information for 2017-2019,” reads the Penitentiary Service’s reply.   

Telephone calls with Asatur Asatryan, who heads service’s Division of Maintenance, have also been fruitless.

We wrote to the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) regarding the seized documents.

The PGO replied that information isn’t available on the repairs at all the prisons prior to 2016.

The Office of the Prosecutor General also reported that the Department for the Oversight of Investigation of Especially Important Cases of the Prosecutor's Office (currently the SIS Department for Oversight of the Jurisdiction of Judicial Proceedings) launched a criminal case on September 9, 2008.

 It concerns the theft of large amounts of state money by employees of the company carrying out repairs at the Armavir Penitentiary from 2007 to 2016. An investigation of abuse of official authority and official falsification by the prison’s top administration is also underway.

No one has yet been charged in the above case.

Armenia’s Special Investigative Service is looking into alleged construction abuses at the Abovyan Penitentiary.

No one has yet been charged in this case.