ARMENIAN TRAFFICKER SENTENCED TO SEVEN YEARS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 000263 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL KTIP KCRM HSTC AM SUBJECT: ARMENIAN TRAFFICKER SENTENCED TO SEVEN YEARS REF: A) YEREVAN 244 B) YEREVAN 259 C) YEREVAN 95 YEREVAN 00000263 001.2 OF 002 -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (SBU) On April 2 a Yerevan court sentenced an ex-convict to seven years in prison for trafficking. This individual was found guilty of forcing Armenian boys into panhandling (reftel),after being prosecuted under a trafficking charge. According to the prosecutor who tried the case, the court's decision established an important precedent for prosecuting future such crimes as trafficking cases. END SUMMARY. -------------- EX-CONVICT PREYS ON YOUNG BOYS FOR PROFIT -------------- ¶2. (SBU) On April 2 a Yerevan court sentenced to seven years 34-year-old Garik Hovhannisian for his involvement in trafficking. Hovhannisian, who has two prior convictions for taking part in the activities of an armed group and causing intentional bodily harm, was found to have periodically exploited as beggars five boys -- ages 12 to 15 -- between May 2007 and June 2008. One of the boys was the son of Hovhannisian's common law wife, and the others were friends of this boy. All of the victims attended special boarding schools located in Yerevan -- one of them is for children who exhibit socially dangerous behavior and the other is for children with special health needs. Initially Hovhannisian exploited only two children, but later he engaged three more, all of whom he met through his wife's son. ¶3. (SBU) According to the case materials, Hovhannisian knew that the children, who all came from vulnerable families, periodically skipped school to engage in panhandling on their own. He offered them a place to sleep and exploited the fact that they did not like going to school. He intimidated and sometimes beat them (when they wanted to quit begging or brought little money),and threatened to kick them out of the room where they stayed at night and return them to school if they disobeyed. Every morning he drove the children to downtown "elite" streets and picked them up late at night, confiscating the money they had gathered -- approximately USD 25 to 40 USD per day. The school administration finally found out about the children's plight and reported it to the police. The children have since rejoined their schools. -------------- PROSECUTORS UPBEAT ABOUT COURT DECISION 
 -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Police investigators initially charged Hovhannisian with involving children in anti-social activities (Article 166 in Armenia's Criminal Code). According to the prosecutors who tried the case, however, the punishment envisioned by Article 166 did not correspond with the severity of the crime that was committed, so they decided to prosecute Hovhannisian under the trafficking statute that carries stronger sanctions. They also appealed to the court to consider that the criminal actions prosecutable by Article 166 -- involvement of children in prostitution, beggary, creation of pornography, among other things -- essentially constitute trafficking and should be considered as such. (NOTE: In order to address this inconsistency, the GOAM's inter-agency working group on anti-trafficking has set up a sub-commission to amend this section of the code, as well as other existing legal gaps that hinder the prosecution of trafficking crimes. End note.) ¶5. (SBU) Although the judge in the case could have rejected the requalification of the charges against Hovhannisian, he surprised prosecutors working on the case by opting not to. Moreover, the judge surprised court observers by quoting in his decision ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, and by citing the convention's definitions of the worst forms of child labor exploitation and trafficking. (COMMENT: This is the first time that Post has come across such a phenomenon in a trafficking decision. It suggests judges have become more sensitized to the crime of trafficking, and we suspect that prosecutors have played a significant role in this new development. They and other law enforcement bodies recently told Emboffs that there is now more pressure from above to try and prosecute trafficking cases. END COMMENT.) -------------- LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVELY PUBLICIZES CASE -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Artur Ghambarian, the prosecutor in the case, told Emboffs YEREVAN 00000263 002.2 OF 002 that the Prosecutor General's office intends to publicize the case as much as possible. He said they are doing this to alert and deter other criminals such as Hovhannisyan that their acts constitute trafficking, and that they will be prosecuted for the crime of trafficking. The press secretary of the Prosecutor General's office promptly distributed the case materials to the local media following the conviction, and a number of of local newspapers have published articles about the case. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶7. (SBU) Armenian law enforcement bodies have been particularly active as of late in detecting, investigating, and prosecuting trafficking crimes (ref B). That they are proactively publicizing the Hovhannisian case is another sign of their enhanced focus on trafficking. These all represent welcome developments, and further corroborate the commitment that the Deputy Prime Minister gave to the Ambassador earlier in the year (ref C) to ramp up GOAM anti-trafficking efforts. If the Hovhannisian conviction holds, the seven-year sentence should help to establish a positive precedent -- and deterrent -- for Armenian law enforcement and the traffickers they pursue. YOVANOVITCH