At the moment, the office of the HRD is trying to get a confirmation of information that the relatives of Luxe Stepanyan, a servicemen killed in a military base, were beaten while they were taking the corpse of the dead serviceman to Yerevan. Karen Andreasyan, the HRD, said during a conversation with www.aravot.am that they hadn’t received a report on the government agency’s unlawful actions yet. Talking about the spread of comments made by Minister Seyran Ohanyan and other officials on the incident and versions they had put forward during the preliminary investigation, Mr. Andreasyan said: “From the perspective of correctness, the best interests of justice are served when there are no versions and comments whatsoever. However, our society has never shown that kind of restraint in both this case and thousands of other cases, and opinions, versions, and comments have been voiced regarding any case. So I greatly doubt that it may have an impact on the preliminary investigation into this case.
“Law-enforcement agencies often don’t enjoy trust for legitimate reasons, although probably the only way to have a fair inquiry is to have all parts of society interfere in every important case. We also have certain information, but we don’t interfere in the preliminary investigation and wait for results; we will see how they will conduct that investigation.” According to Mr. Andreasyan, taking the corpse to Yerevan is illegal. “Closing the square is moral pressure on all of us. However, I think it is funny when they try to lay the blame for the parents’ rudimentary, strange and, probably, unacceptable way of struggle on human rights advocates.
“If they want to find someone to blame for the fact that the parents want to take such a step, they should blame the work style of law-enforcement agencies in the past twenty years, which makes every bereaved person express his own sorrow, demand justice, using different methods, even the most unacceptable ones, instead of waiting for the decision of an honest detective, an honest judge or an honest prosecutor. The law-enforcement system that doesn’t enjoy trust and makes people take to the streets is to blame here and not some outside people who may even give bad advice.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
