ArmYouth Blog

On December 24, 2003, Privates Hovsep Mkrtumyan and Roman Yeghiazaryan disappeared from military base N. The military tribunal filed criminal charges against them fifteen days later, but then on January 9, 2004, their bodies were recovered from a stream nearby, with marks suggesting violent death.

The four conscripts who were arrested and charged in their murder implicated Battalion Commander Ivan Grigoryan and Officers Karlen Mayilyan and Ruben Baghryan in their testimony. Arman Grigoryan, a witness in the case, told of how he saw Battalion Commander Ivan Grigoryan take out two heavy plastic bags from his Niva. When the commander noticed Grigoryan, he called him over and told him to dump the bags into the creek. Eventually, the course of the investigation took a dramatic turn. The four defendants were exonerated and new suspects were accused… The Syunik Court of First Instance sentenced defendants Razmik Sargsyan, Araik Zalyan, and Musa Serobyan to 15 years in prison on May 18, 2005. The verdict was based on a single confession attributed to Razmik Sargsyan, which, according to repeated statements by the defendant, had been obtained through beatings and violence. Razmik Sargsyan stated that he had been tortured by Aram Baghdasaryan, a military police officer. The three conscripts had been interrogated on numerous occasions between April 19 and April 24, 2004, always in handcuffs, and had been denied the right to legal defense.

[  For full text of Zakaryan’s article, “Hunger Strikes and Murder in the Army,” visit  HETQ Online at http://www.hetq.am/eng/society/0512-razmik.html  ]
Eventually, the young men decided to go on a hunger strike and particularly Razmik Sargsyan reportedly kept his hunger strike ever since August 12, 2005.  Their trial was held on November 30^th, even though the men were physically too weak to sit through their own hearings.  Sargsyan even apparently became so sick that he had to be taken out of the courtroom.  Reporters who attended the court case were apparently deprived of the right to record the hearing procedures but were eventually given back their taperecorders and etc.  Essentially, they tried to have the trial behind closed doors but that did not work as well.  As a result, the trial has been postponed. 
From what I am beginning to understanding, this is nothing new and certainly common knowledge especially for the soldiers.  In October 2005, Armenian Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Office organized a protest against their sentencing.  Mothers of the three soldiers who were accused as well as the soldiers’ who were killed were all present at this event. 
[  Protests which took place in Republic Square of Yerevan on October 5, 2005, “Marching for the release of three soldiers”  http://www.hra.am/eng/?page=issue&id=15368  ]
The protests and outcries from Ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan’s office have apparently not changed much of the situation either.  Meanwhile the trial has been postponed indefinitely and reportedly Sargsyan and his fellow soldiers’ conditions are improving a bit.  Whether or not these young men are innocent of the murder of their fellow soldiers will soon be determined by the judge.  Yet this story only highlights a fact that practically everyone in Armenia knows about and that is the continued torture and ill-treatment of soldiers in the army.