No One Will Be Punished for Disposing of the Bodies and Remains of Fallen Soldiers in Polyethylene Bags

No one will be held accountable for the act of throwing the bodies and remains of fallen soldiers on the floor of a basement. The Investigative Committee has decided that storing the soldiers' bodies in the basement is normal and has terminated the criminal case on the matter.

This condemnable phenomenon, involving the remains and bodies of fallen soldiers being kept in the basement of the Abovyan morgue, came to public attention on December 31, 2021, when relatives released shocking footage showing the bodies thrown on the ground in polyethylene bags. The Ministry of Health of Armenia confirmed the details, stating that the remains had supposedly gone through the appropriate identification process and were waiting for relatives to collect them for burial.

To mitigate the uproar, the Ministry of Health announced perhaps two days later that the head of the Forensic Medical Center’s branch in Abovyan and two employees had been dismissed. It was subsequently announced that a criminal case had been initiated under Article 308, Part 1 of the Armenian Criminal Code for abuse of official powers. It is now evident that the initiation of the criminal case merely aimed to quell public discontent and not to provide a proper criminal-legal assessment of the actions of those responsible for this disgraceful phenomenon.

Days ago, Factinfo sent a written inquiry to the Investigative Committee of Armenia to clarify the status of the criminal investigation, whether any charges had been brought against individuals, and whether Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan had been questioned in relation to the case. However, it was revealed that the minister not only had not been questioned, but no charges had been issued against anyone, and they did not even consider the storage of the fallen soldiers' bodies in the basement to be a prosecutable offense.

According to the response from the Investigative Committee concerning the case of the improper storage of the bodies and remains of fallen soldiers at the Forensic Medical Center of Kotayk Province, a criminal case number 49200121 was initiated on June 2, 2021, under Article 308, Part 1 of the Armenian Criminal Code at the Kotayk Province Prosecutor's Office, which was forwarded to the Abovyan Investigative Division of the Investigative Committee of Armenia for further investigation. On December 16, a decision was made not to pursue criminal charges and to terminate the criminal proceedings based on Article 35, Part 1, Point 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, citing lack of evidence of a crime. Additionally, the Investigative Committee noted that during the investigation, Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan had not been questioned.