The investigation into the torture case will resume

On April 5, 2023, near midnight, two officers of the Police Patrol Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Armenia incited an unfounded argument with citizen Zh.G., forcibly placed him in a service car without any justification, and began to sexually insult and beat him.  

Samson Galstyan, a lawyer of HCA Vanadzor and the authorized representative of the victim Zh. G. filed a complaint with the Yerevan Criminal Court of General Jurisdiction, disputing the two decisions made by the General Prosecutor’s office of the RA, by which the prosecutor’s office refused to initiate public criminal prosecution against the police officers.  

The investigation carried out was incomplete, superficial, and did not ensure the full implementation of the constitutional rights of the victim; sufficient investigative actions have not been implemented to obtain evidence and to fully uncover the circumstances. In particular, the actions of the police officers were not examined, the video recordings were not fully analyzed, and some documents were even lost. The prosecutor, not having sufficient evidence, made an ungrounded decision, ignoring the requirements of the criminal procedure code, precedents set by the Court of Cassation, and the standards of international human rights.  

S. Galstyan requested the Yerevan Criminal Court of General Jurisdiction to annul the decisions made by the prosecutor and to obligate the body conducting the proceeding to continue the examination to restore the violated rights of the victim and to uncover the significant circumstances of the case. On June 2, the court upheld the claim.