On February 18, 2012 convict Hovhannes Dokholyan died in the "Hospital of Convicts" penitentiary institution of the Ministry of Justice.  According to the preliminary version Dokholyan committed suicide by means of electric current, but before committing suicide he left a message, where he announced that he had been sick and tired of life. During the last 7 months he had committed two suicide attempts, which fortunately were prevented.

 "The group of observers finds that in case of the suicide of a convict the RA Ministry of Justice is held accountable" mentions Arthur Sakunts, the Coordinator of the group of public observers conducting public monitoring of the penitentiary institutions.  

The group of public observers conducting public monitoring of penitentiary institutions submitted three ad hoc reports concerning the health condition of H. Dokhlyan to the RA Ministry of Justice (on June 9, July 22 and December 22, 2011) informing that he suffers from a serious disease, which hinders him from bearing the punishment and had turned to them with an appeal to exempt from punishment. To all three ad hoc reports they received 4 letters from the RA Ministry of Justice (11.07.2011, 27.07.2011, 16.08.2011, 26.12.2011) and 1 letter from the Penitentiary Department (29.07.2011). It was noted in the letters that the decisions of the Working Medical Committee is submitted to the Interdepartmental Medical Commission and now there are in the phase of study (29.07.11 and 16.08.11 answer letters), but with 26 December 2011 letter a large-scale investigation on exemption of the convict from the punishment was implemented and corresponding legal acts regulating that field were developed.

 "So, in case of presence of a serious disease, which hinders the convict from serving the punishment because of the absence of the working procedure  of the nteragency Medical Commission the problem has not been solved for at least 7 months. Moreover the group of public observers disseminated 5 press releases in 2011 (11.07.11, 06.08.11, 09.09.11, 02.11.11, 30.12.11) by which it expressed its concerns about indifferent attitude towards H. Dokholyan and condemned such way of acting qualifying as a serious violation of human rights", says Arthur Sakunts, Coordinator of the group of public observers.

The group of public observers recorded that the RA Ministry of Justice showed a prolonged indifferent attitude and formal approach towards the convict H. Dokhlyan, which led to the inhuman attitude and violation of the right to life.

Source-www.hra.am