David Stepanyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Recently Armenia has seen an event which dispelled the last hopes for the citizens' justice. The investigation service of the Defense Ministry reported on dismissal of the criminal case of Tigran Khachatryan and his bodyguard Zarzand Nikogosyan. Both of them were accused of murdering the former candidate for Goris’s mayor, Avetik Budagyan, and had been detained under arrest for three months.
At the beginning of the investigation, the investigation service of the Defense Ministry “found out” that the son and the bodyguard of Litska (a nickname of the former governor of the Syunik region, Syurik Khachatryan) were merely defended themselves from Avetik and Artak Budagyan, who were attacking them.
The head of the investigation service of the Defense Ministry, Armen Arutyunyan, who was nicknamed by journalists “the lawyer” of the Khachatryans, stated that all the weapons – about 10 guns – found in Litska’s house were registered in his name. Arutyunyan didn’t answer all the direct questions on how 11 shots by the Khachatryans could be considered self-defense and a response to two shots which were said to have been made by Avetik Budagyan. When journalists asked him how the home-made gun which was found in Litska’s house could be legally registered in his name, Arutyunyan referred to a weapons-bearing document which was signed by the head of the police. According to Arutyunyan’s logic, any home-made gun can be turned into a legal by one signature of a policeman.
According to the lawyer of Artak Budagyan, Aik Alumyan, the investigation service and the military prosecution did their best to equate him to a real criminal, ignoring the murder of Avetik Budagyan. The fact that “the top brass” would do everything to cover up for the Khachatryans was obvious from the very beginning. The investigation excluded an option that Litska was present at the crime scene, stating that the drunk governor slept at home so well that he woke up only after a dozen shots in his yard. The release of Budagyan’s murders stirred up society and dispelled the last hopes for Armenian justice.
The civil initiative “Pre-parliament” stated that the release of Khachatryan and Nikogosyan demonstrated that the system of state management had turned into an instrument of enslavement and humiliation of its own people. Human right activists Artur Sakunts and Janna Alexanyan left the Defense Ministry committee on deaths of military personnel because of the case. They stated that the decision was made under the supervision of the military prosecutor, Gevork Kostanyan.
It seems that only representatives of the ruling party, state structures and Khachatryan believe the decision on Litska’s case is fair. Everybody knows Litska and his Mediaeval rules in the Syunik region.
