OPEN LETTER TO ARMENIAN POLICE HEAD ON LEVON GULYAN’S DEATH

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Dear Mr. Harutyunyan;

I am writing to you on behalf of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) to express our concern over the 12 May 2007 death of Mr. Levon Gulyan in policy custody, and to respectfully ask you to ensure that all the circumstances leading to his death be investigated thoroughly and independently.

According to information available to the IHF, Mr. Gulyan, a Yerevan restaurant owner, was arrested after having witnessed a shooting in the vicinity of his restaurant on 9 May 2007. It is our understanding that he was not arrested as a suspect but as a witness to the crime. Mr. Gulyan was reportedly questioned on several occasions between 9 and 12 May, with the last interrogation reportedly taking place on the Police Headquarters, where Mr. Gulyan died on 12 May.

According to an official announcement, Mr. Gulyan died after having tried to escape by jumping from a third-floor window, or by committing suicide. This explanation has been vehemently rejected by Mr. Gulyan’s family and questioned by local human rights monitors who suspect that Mr. Gulyan died as a result of police ill-treatment; the family claims that Mr. Gulyan was beaten already upon his arrest and had bruises on his body after returning from the previous police hearings.

The IHF finds such suspicions legitimate especially in light of a past record of suspicious cases of death in police custody in Armenia and the fact that torture and ill-treatment by the police remain serious problems, as noted also by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture in its 2004 report on Armenia and reported by the IHF affiliated organizations in your country. Armenia has ratified the UN Convention against Torture, which requires that all alleged cases of torture be investigated promptly and impartially (article 12). Article 290 of the Armenian Criminal Procedure Code provides for the same obligation. I would therefore respectfully ask you to ensure that an independent investigation be immediately conducted into the death of Levon Gulyan, and its results be made public. Should evidence of police involvement in Mr. Gulyan’s death be found, I urge you to make sure that the suspected perpetrators are charged, brought before a court of law, and are adequately punished.

Yours respectfully,

Aaron Rhodes

Executive Director

International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF)