Armenia: Artak Nazaryan's representatives demand to institute criminal case against investigators

Today, the court session in the case on the death of contractor officer Artak Nazaryan has continued the phase of consideration of the motions. The party victim again claimed forgeries in the course of the work of investigators and offered to institute criminal proceedings against them. The prosecutor opposed the motion.

Artak Nazaryan was driven to suicide, and on July 27, 2010, he shot and killed himself from a service weapon. Five of his colleagues were detained within the investigation into the criminal case. Relatives of the deceased officer believe that the preliminary investigation was conducted with violations of the law and represent an attempt to cover up the true cause of the death of the Lieutenant.

Today, Ruben Martirosyan, a representative of the victim party, a human rights defender, presented to the court a motion, entitled "Notification of Crime".

"The body of preliminary investigation has failed to find out, who beat and tortured Artak Nazaryan and who inflicted him a total of 54 injuries. Besides, the investigators did not revealed, with whom Artak Nazaryan drank alcoholic beverages 1-1.5 hours prior to his death," Ruben Martirosyan has stated.

According to him, the investigators have replaced the shell, which is the main piece of evidence in the case. "The other shell was sent for examination. Signs, available on submachine gun of Artak Nazaryan, were destroyed, and the investigators falsified records of examining the place of the accident," the human rights defender believes.

"Why forensic chemical and biological examinations of Artak's clothes were not conducted?" asked Tsovinar Nazaryan, the successor of Artak Nazaryan, his sister.

Prosecutor Aik Aroyan opposed the motion of Ruben Martirosyan.

Ruben Martirosyan suggested the court to apply to the Special Investigatory Service to institute criminal proceedings against the investigators, who had committed forgery and fraud. The judge dismissed the motion, having found it to be premature.