Armenia's GPP dissatisfied with Hammarberg's statements

Agvan Ovsepyan, General Public Prosecutor (GPP) of Armenia, has expressed severe criticism of the statements made by Thomas Hammarberg, Supreme Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, about the course of investigation and court decisions made in relation to the events of March 1.

According to the message of the press service of the Prosecutor's Office of Armenia, during his meeting with Silvia Zeikhe, Special Representative of the Council of Europe in Armenia, Agvan Ovsepyan expressed his bewilderment by the fact that the Supreme Commissioner could do his conclusions, while being unfamiliar with the materials of criminal cases. The GPP has also expressed his negative attitude to Mr Hammarberg's statement that Armenia should take advantage, for studying the circumstances of the death of the 10 casualties, of the services of international ballistic experts.

According to Agvan Ovsepyan, shortly after the events of March 1 the State Office of Public Prosecutor addressed with this sort of request to the United Nations, OSCE, US Embassy and personally to Mr Hammarberg asking to provide the help of Ballistic experts. However, the request was ignored.

We remind you that Thomas Hammarberg, Supreme Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, speaking at the press conference in Yerevan on November 22, when summing up his three-day visit to Armenia, said that no progress had been made in fulfilling the OSCE Resolutions. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the custody conditions of prisoners: "I'm disturbed by the fact that people are in custody for more than 8 months without presenting any clear proofs that they should respond for the events on March 1."

He has pointed to deficiencies in running the litigation. In particular, according to Thomas Hammarberg, there are cases when witnesses are exposed to pressure, as a result of which some witnesses refused to evidence.

Mr Hammarberg made special accent in his presentation on the so-called "Case of Seven", that is, the case of the organizers of March 1 events. The Supreme Commissioner has expressed his doubt of whether they generally had any desire to overthrow the power by force. "So far, I've seen nothing looking like an attempt to overthrow the existing power," he has stated.

Thomas Hammarberg has reported that he plans to thoroughly study all the materials of the case and the judicial opinion. "Should I find out that there are no sufficient evidences for transferring the case to the court, then we'll talk about the presence of political prisoners," he added.