On Oct. 3, Samvel Khatchadryan, a conscript in the Armenian Army, was discovered in a “hanged state” at the N military outpost, according to the Ministry of Defense (DM). Following investigations, the DM stated on Oct. 13 that a group of soldiers had clearly broken accepted rules of conduct, and had physically and verbally abused Khachatryan.
Armenian news sources confirmed that six soldiers and one officer were arrested in connection with his death, and are facing between three and eight years in prison. The suspects are yet to be identified.
Khachatryan’s sister reportedly contacted the Zhamanak newspaper claiming her brother’s death was not a suicide—that instead, he was violently beaten, strangled by a thin wire, and then hanged. She said a forensic examination had revealed bruises on his body and a broken wrist.
“Samvel called his relatives on Oct. 1 and said that he had problems with the chief of soldiers. He fell asleep during classes and the commander beat and insulted him. He was beaten again by the commander and four soldiers,” the sister was quoted as saying.
It is not clear whether military investigators consider Khachatryan’s death to be a suicide or homicide.
In recent months, there have been a number of cases of abuse and deaths in the army. A recent YouTube clip showed two soldiers being abused at the hands of their superior, who was soon after identified as Major Sasun Kalsdyan at the N military outpost.
Within a month, between July and August, eight army officers were shot dead in three separate incidents. One involved the death of contract soldier Artak Nazaryan; authorities claim it was a suicide, while his family insists it was murder.
Following the incidents in July, the DM dismissed eight army officers, among them the commander of the Martuni military unit, Colonel Felix Baghdasaryan, and reprimanded 13 others.
Human rights groups have insisted that most army suicides are homicides, but tampering with evidence on the part of army officers has made them appear as suicides. In June 2008, the families of soldiers who died during military service between 2005 and 2008 issued a statement in which they accused authorities of systematically carrying out false investigations and destroying or tampering with evidence in order to portray homicides as accidents, suicides, or results of sniper attacks, noted the 2008 State Department Country Report.
Nanore Barsoumian
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Hye, seems in Haiastan, as in other nations, we have to teach our leaders… whether they be in the government, the police and, now too, in the military. There appears to be a need to teach the military that ‘rank’ does not give one the priority to abuse those who
have come to serve their nation in the military. Too, the tratment of Zaruhi, just because she was a woman, her ‘male’ husband feltl he was superior to Zaruhi, his wife.
Marriages do not make the male the ‘abuser’… Males are the defender and the protector of our Armenian women… Too, males/fathers are also important to the image
they teach their own children by their own examples! Abusers show their children that the male can abuse the woman – and so it continues… for generations that which was not of the Armenian national traditions but forced upon Armenians via the Turkish Genocide of the Armenians (which all deplore and lament now all these years) and too,
nearly seventy (70) years of communist domination…
Re-Education of our nation’s family life is vital, and women serve our nation too,k even better than some of the men now in leadership!! Abuse is of Turk mentality, as we well
know… Armenians, all educated and intelligent should not stoop down to what the Turk
have caused our peoples, aside from slaughter, rapes, and worse – but the Turk knows not to value the beauty of life, of living and loving and enjoying each other while we are on this earth. We Armenians are worthy of greatness, we Armenians are worthy of all that we can be, honestly, generously, and all things humane.
This all starts with the Armenian Church, the Armenian Schools, the ARS and all women’s organizations to show that more is to be had with honey than with beebehr (pepper).
Manooshag