‘They have killed my son, there was chaos in the positions’: Soldiers mocked the mother of the slain soldier.

‘My son did not commit suicide, he was very happy, proud,’ says Tamara Gasparyan, the mother of contract soldier Sarkis Khachatryan, in an interview with Forrights.am. Her son passed away on the night of July 2–3 at the positions in Verin Shorzha. The Investigative Committee has classified the incident as a suicide. Tamara Gasparyan is outraged that her son's body was still warm when they declared it a suicide.

‘My son was my friend; we were a team, if he was in trouble, he would have told me. They declared him a suicide before even taking him to the morgue. Why? At the military police in Vardenis, I asked where their responsible officer was, and they told me to set that aside. When I asked who my son last spoke to before supposedly committing suicide, they told me to set that aside too. I was out of my mind at that moment,’ says the mother, noting that they even mocked her grief at the Vardenis Military Police when she tried to understand why her son had died.

‘When I asked when the last call was, they touched me and said it's about the last call at school. My deceased son is ridiculed in the Vardenis military. Is that something to say? They touched me. To them, the soldier is zero. My son is not the only one. Since January, there have been 16 cases; my son is the 16th and they all committed suicide?’ she says.

According to Mrs. Tamara, the final humiliation was when she asked for her son's military uniform to be returned, but they declared him a suicide without a court ruling and refused to give her the military outfit. ‘I told the military, I want my son’s clothes, and they replied, what are you doing? I just want to smell my son’s scent. That’s what I want. Whatever I say, they tell me to put those questions aside,’ she added.

‘Let the higher officials go check the post. Their post is chaotic. Where is their responsible officer? Why didn't the guys from Sarkis's post come to pay their respects? Why didn’t they come if they had done nothing wrong? I don’t blame anyone, but they shot my boy. He spoke the truth; he said what was on his mind,’ the mother shared, revealing another notable detail. ‘On the day of the incident, they changed my son’s post; he was not with his friends. He was still in Verin Shorzha but was not at his permanent post.’ The mother has no answer as to why her son was moved to a different position.

The Investigative Committee has classified this incident as a suicide. ‘They came and said he took that step for a girl, due to debts, but that’s a lie; my son had no secrets from me. He wouldn’t have done that for a girl. The military told me it was a girl issue,’ Tamara Gasparyan said, while Sarkis's brother, Narek Khachatryan, added that Sarkis was shot in the throat area, which is mentioned in the Investigative Committee's report. However, notably, the family was not given a death certificate at the morgue, which should indicate the nature of the life-threatening injuries. Furthermore, the mother and brother were not recognized as the victim's legal heirs. No one from the Ministry of Defense visited the family in connection with Sarkis's death, nor did the immediate commander or fellow servicemen, only the deputy commander of the battalion came and left without providing substantial information.