"Mher, with his hands chained up, was lying in bed, with an intravenous delivery system, silent and tears on his face, looked very desperately", tells Avetik Ishkhanyan, president of Armenian Helsinki Committee, who visited him after the last arrest.

According to Ishkhanyan he is under medical control all the time, in order not to commit a suicide. Mher told Ishkhanyan that he did not believe in anything, and wanted to die.

Prisoner Mher Enokyan, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, escapes from the prison for the second time. First time he escaped from Goris prison, on December 9, 2004, the second time he escaped two months ago on December, 2009. Both times he was caught in the center of the city.

Both times he escaped together with his friend Soghomon Kocharyan, who was kept in the same cell. Soghomon was caught in Moughni village.

He was operated in hospital, as after his arrest during the interview he took out a knife and tried to commit a suicide. He told Arman Danielyan, head of the Public monitoring group of the penitentiary institutions under RA Ministry of Justice that he injured himself by the knife during the interview and hid it in such a way that nobody found it.

What made 34 year old Mher Enokyan to climb the walls of the state system for two times and to escape from the prison? The last time after being caught he tried to commit a suicide.

Mher has been in prison for 14 years, when he was imprisoned at the age of 19, third year student of dental department of the Medical University. He was sentenced to death for killing his friend, and in 2003 when death penalty was abolished his sentence was changed to life imprisonment.   

On July 12, 1996, at 17:00 o'clock Mher Enokyan, together with his friend, Iosif Aghajanov visited his other friend Aram Harutyunyan, where Iosif was killed with Aram's knife thrust. It can be seen from the criminal case that Aram stabbed the knife into his neck (according to the medical examination 18 wounds were found on his body, 6 of which could cause the death).  

Aram studied together with Mher's brother in the same class at school, and Iosif studied with Mher in the University. Aram and Iosif met each other for the first time that day.  

According to Mher's testimony he visited Aram together with Iosif, so that then three of them would go to his house. Here Aram and Iosif quarreled about universities and textbooks, cursed and started to beat each other. Mher started to separate them as a result Aram stabbed the knife into Iosif's throat.

Durign the trial Aram Harutyunyan confessed and was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment (after one year he will be released). And Mher Enokyan did not accept his guilt till the end.

According to the court verdict the murder was planned beforehand and allegedly Mher Enokyan had taken Iosif's feet and told Aram that he would cut his neck. Mher's guilt is based on Aram's and his father's testimonies (father was not present during the murder). According to the attorney's speech Aram Harutyunyan had given five controversial testimonies.  In his fifth testimony the knife appears to be in Mher's hand.  

According to the court verdict, based on Aram's testimony, Mher had kicked on Iosif's spine and on the neck, and then he tried to strangle him. But medical expert told in the court that there were no traces of beating on that part, as well as strangle.   

The court verdict was made by judge Zinavat Ghukasyan on 29 November, 1996, who substantiated his decision "the level of Mher's participation, organization of the murder, and active role in committing the murder".

According to the court verdict they organized the murder to demand 20 thousand dollars from Iosif's father for his son's corpus

Mher's father, 65 year old Davit Enokyan, says that Mher could not have done such a thing for speculative reasons, as he did not have any financial problems, they lived quite well, they had a dental clinic that would be headed by Mher upon his graduation from the Medical University in two years. 

It is not clear that if they had self-interested, speculative purposes then why they would go to police just after Iosif's murder. 

Mher's mother, 35 year old pediatrician Varduhi Ohanyan, still remembers that Mher called her on that day and said that he got 5 at the exam, and he would host his friend from the university to show his father's dental clinic, and sport complex, and told his mother to prepare something tasty. He said that they would go to Seven Zangvats to Aram's house then they would come home (Enokyan's family lives in the Nor Nork Fifth district). The court did not take into consideration the fact of this phone call. 

During his adolescence Mher went in for wrestling, and was a champion in Yerevan. This sport transformed to karate in the court verdict and was used against him as a murder inducement (till 1988 karate was forbidden). In the court verdict it is written that he had taught Aram karate and told him to be cruel and courageous. It is also written that the young people had watched videos about mafia groups, and analyzed them. Allegedly Mher had thought of demanding a ransom one year before the murder, and he did not consider efficient the actions of mafia, when they kidnap a person and demand for a ransom. He had said that he would act in a more clever and thoughtful manner, and tried to push Aram toward such ideas.

Mher's father says that at that time they could not watch films, as both of them did not even have a video-set, and his son was studying for entering Medical University and met Aram very rarely.

Mher's attorney, Matevosyan, compared accusatory conclusion /bill of indictment/ to the fiction, where there are no legally grounded facts.

Witness of the murder could be Aram's sister who was in the house at that time, but he did not come to the court because of his illness. 

Mher's mother tells that Aram's parents asked them not to call their daughter to the court.

"They asked us not to involve her in this case, as she is young she has an issue of forming a family, tells Varduhi Ohanyan, and we as human beings agreed. We did not think at that moment that her presence could help our son".

Doctor Davit Enokyan, with 45 years of work experience, met all the Prosecutors asking to review his son's case, after a negative response, he got heart attack twice. Only deceased Prosecutor Henrik Khachatryan promised to deal with Mher's case, "Khachatryan said on TV that there are several sentences to death that need to be reviewed and he brought an example of my son's case". But he did not manage to open the case again (Henrik Khachatryan was killed at his office on August, 1988).

He says that he has tried to investigate the case himself for a month, during which family members has been threatened.

"One time when I came to the clinic I saw a note on the door,- he tells, - they wrote that I put my nose not in my business, "aren't you afraid that your wife can fall down from the eighth floor.   

Enokyan was threatened and decided to stop his work. In order to hire an attorney and to bring parcels they sold their house.

After moving to Nubarashen penitentiary institution from Goris, Mher requested that the prisoner who would share his cell would not be addicted to smoking. He neither drinks nor smokes, which is a very rare phenomenon among the prisoners sentenced to a long-term period. Mother tells that employees of the prison are surprised about Mher's behaviour, "even when he refuses to eat food, he tells the employees not to throw it but to place it at the garbage boxes, so that beggars would take it".   In prison Mher wrote novel "Your world" comprised of 700 pages. The book is in Russian. After the escape security officers took the book from Mher's brother's computer.

Christine Vardanyan

"Ankakh" weekly newspaper

P.S. According to the Prosecutor's office Mher Enokyan and Soghomon Kocharyan planned their escape in summer, 2009. They observed the working style of the penitentiary employees and became assured that the latter did not search the cells properly, when getting out from the cells the prisoners were not searched, no technical observation was done in walking yard, and the roofs were not controlled.
They had taken pieces of saw from Kim Hayrapetyan, the prisoner of "Nubarashen" penitentiary institute, and 3-4 months have been cutting the iron bars of the roof of number 1 yard of the penitentiary institution. 

Having enough threads of different types, they managed to make 9.5 and 2 meters high ropes with the help of which they went through the hole made in the roof of the yard, then escaped. Investigation showed that Serjik Tamrazyan, head of the security service of penitentiary institution, was aware of the planned escape in October, but did not keep the prisoners under a more severe control.