Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

On May 17, 2019, in Lori region General Jurisdiction Court, Haykazn Chakhoyan (who was invited to the Court as the forensic expert doctor in the case of puerperant Hripsime Nazlukhanyan’s death) was interrogated. Haykazn Chakhoyan is a member of the commission that conducted forensic medical examination.

He was invited to the Court by the defendant party’s petition.

The interests of the victim’s successor are represented by Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor lawyer Ani Chatinyan.

Defender Artak Voskanyan and defendant Davit Shahverdyan went on asking the expert questions. An accusation had been filed against Davit Shahverdyan under Article 130 § 2 of the RA Criminal Code, i.e. failure to implement or improper implementation of professional duties which resulted in the patient’s death.

During the previous session, counterarguing against the claims made by the defendant party, the expert reconfirmed that under conditions of continuous bleeding laparotomy should have been done and other actions should have been done alongside and not as the ultimate goal.

During the court session that took place on May 17, the defendant and the defender repeated many questions having already received the answers, a condition which the accusing prosecutor Garegin Manukyan announced a few times.    

Questions that were already figured out during the previous court session were also given. Expert H. Chakhoyan gave more details pertaining to certain questions and refused to repeat answers to some other questions, while there were also questions irrelevant to the expert conclusion and that is why the expert did not answer them.

When the expert was talking in a detailed way about the interventions that should have been made but were not made, the victim’s relatives who were present in the court used criticizing expressions directed at the defendant. Immediately after that, defendant A. Voskanyan petitioned to conduct the session closed-door, since, as he claimed, defaming expressions were being directed at the defendant.

The Court examined the defender’s petition and refused it. However, the Court gave the victim’s relatives a warning. The expert’s interrogation continued during the open-door court session.  

Questions pertaining to other details of the incident were raised. The defender and the defendant tried to find out the expert’s opinion on whether non-profuse bleeding for hours could turn into profuse bleeding. The expert said that it could and irrespective of the fact at what point of time profuse bleeding began, it should have been stopped by all the possible means, which, in that case, was laparotomy and removal of the uterus as a last resort.

The defender gave H. Chakhoyan other questions that were not relevant to the expert conclusion. He tried to find out whether the experts checked if the victim had other diseases which could cause bleeding. In response, the expert reminded once again that the experts gave a conclusion only based on the questions set forth and the documents provided, in which there was no information on whether the dead puerperant had other diseases and there was no necessity to find it out.

The Court asked whether the defendant party cast doubt on the expert conclusion according to which death was caused by acute blood loss, A. Voskanyan gave a positive answer and went on with the questions.

The accusing prosecutor G. Manukyan asked the expert whether D. Shahverdyan was present during the commission session and what clarifications he gave to the questions. The expert mentioned that among other answers, D. Shahverdyan had stated that he could not conduct the removal of the uterus alone.

The representative of the victim’s successor – Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor lawyer Ani Chatinyan- had no questions to be addressed to the expert. She mentioned that for hours on end, H. Chakhoyan gave detailed and comprehensive clarifications to the questions raised in the Court and that she did not see any necessity of additional clarifications.

The court session finished. The next court session is scheduled on June 20, 2019.