The charred bodies of the young conscripts were recovered after a major fire destroyed their makeshift barracks located in a village in Armenia’s eastern Gegharkunik province early on January 19. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Defense Minister Suren Papikian said hours later that the fire was sparked by an officer who poured gasoline into a woodstove in breach of the military’s fire-safety rules.
The officer, Captain Yeghishe Hakobian, suffered serious burns and remains in hospital. Hakobian and two other, more high-ranking officers are prosecuted in connection with what was one of the deadliest ever non-combat incidents registered in the Armenian army ranks. The two officers were arrested later in January.
“We are officially declaring that the [families of the] victims do not believe in the official theory … and do not exclude any other theory, including the theory about a premeditated murder of their sons,” said Norayr Norikian, a lawyer representing the families of 13 of the 15 soldiers.
Norikian said, in particular, that Pashinian jumped to a conclusion right after the start of the investigation. He also pointed to conflicting statements about the soldiers’ deaths made by other officials.
One of those officials, a senior firefighter, said the soldiers died in their sleep because of apparent suffocation. However, a military prosecutor involved in the probe claimed the opposite afterwards.
Norikian’s clients believe that their sons were either dead or unconscious when the fire erupted at the village house turned into barracks.
Arman Barseghian, the father of one of the victims, said that surviving soldiers of his son Gagik’s engineer-sapper company have given contradictory accounts of what happened on the night from January 18-19.
“One of them testified that the door [of the barracks] was closed while the other testified that it was open,” Barseghian told reporters. “One soldier heard voices and a hassle but another felt like he was alone there and heard nothing. Isn’t that suspicious?”
The father of another victim, Hay Kirakosian, claimed that two soldiers of the unit had a “conflict” with another junior officer who is not among the indicted suspects.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee has pledged to look into such claims.
The grieving families were also angered by parliament speaker Alen Simonian’s claim that the deceased soldiers had decent living conditions and failed to observe fire-safety rules.