ADVANCING HR/ROL AGENDA WITH THE PROSECUTOR GENERAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 YEREVAN 000771 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/01/2019 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL KDEM KJUS KTIP TU AM SUBJECT: ADVANCING HR/ROL AGENDA WITH THE PROSECUTOR GENERAL REF: YEREVAN 664 YEREVAN 00000771 001.3 OF 004 Classified By: AMB Marie L. Yovanovitch, reasons 1.4 (b,d). -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) The Ambassador met with Prosecutor General (PG) Aghvan Hovsepian on October 28 in an attempt to advance Post's human rights and rule of law agenda. The specific goals of the meeting were to acknowledge the PG's recent intervention in the release of two civil society activists--that Post had actively engaged him on--and to suggest other areas where the PG could use the power of his office to register more human rights and rule of law progress, which the Ambassador asserted was vital to improving bilateral relations with the United States, and which would complement the bold foreign steps Armenia has been taking on Turkey-Armenia normalization. The Ambassador called upon the PG to be flexible in considering the release of the remaining 15 political detainees from the March 2008 events, to aggressively prosecute attacks on journalists, and to use his office to the greatest extent possible to combat corruption. In this last regard, the Ambassador underscored the importance of criminal punishment for those officials involved in the 2006 Anush Zakharyants trafficking case. ¶2. (C) SUMMARY CONTINUED: While sticking to his guns on many of the issues the Ambassador raised, the PG appeared more open to Post's appeals than has been the case in the past, and he thanked the Ambassador for recognizing the positive steps Armenia had taken on anti-trafficking and the recent releases of the civil society activists. Although he made no promises, the PG said he would review the non-paper list of detainees the Ambassador shared and would provide his feedback. Additionally, he admitted that upon his review of one of the cases of the two detained civil society activists--that the Ambassador had asked him to undertake--it was clear to him that police had mishandled the investigation of the affair, which prompted him to approve the release. He argued that the prosecution of attacks on journalists was harder than it appeared, due to inconsistent statements of, and overall lack of witnesses. The PG gave no ground, however, on doling out punishment to corrupt anti-trafficking officials in the Zakharyants case, arguing that his former official had made an honest mistake that he more than made up for in his aggressive prosecution of other trafficking cases. The PG did warm, however, to the Ambassador's offer to help spur cross-border law enforcement cooperation with Turkey on trafficking cases, and said general law enforcement cooperation with Turkey had long been a personal goal of his. END SUMMARY. -------------- -------------- RELEASES OF ACTIVISTS AN IMPORTANT STEP, HELPFUL TO RELATIONS -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) Over lunch at her residence on October 27, the Ambassador thanked the PG for reviewing the cases of the two detained civil society activists--the youth activist Tigran Arakelian and the human rights activist Mr. Arshaluis Hakobian--and having his prosecutors successfully request their releases from detention while their legal cases proceed. The Ambassador noted that Washington sought and welcomed such steps, and they helped create a better environment for broader US-Armenia bilateral ties; the Ambassador also noted that this message had formed a key theme of the recent October 20-21 visit of EUR DAS Tina Kaidanow, who lobbied President Sargsian and other senior leaders to complement their bold foreign policy steps on normalization with Turkey with similarly bold domestic steps on human rights, rule of law, and democratization. The Ambassador also acknowledged the downgrading of charges against the female activist Mariam Sukhudian in late October, and told the PG that Washington hoped the legal outcomes of all three cases would reflect a just, transparent administration of justice. ¶4. (C) PG Hovsepian thanked the Ambassador for recognizing "Armenia's" positive efforts on anti-trafficking and his role in the release of the two activists. He said the presence of an Ambassador, after a long absence of one, was very important for the development of relations, and he complimented the Ambassador for her "concrete actions and concrete results" in this regard. He noted that he was unable to review every case, but said "on the Hakobian case I had the feeling that police had overstepped their bounds," with Hovsepian opposed to the fact that the police, who had arrested Hakobian and reportedly beaten and physically mistreated him during and after the arrest, were now the ones carrying out the investigation of the case. Interestingly, YEREVAN 00000771 002.2 OF 004 the PG stated that in approving his prosecutors' request of Hakobian's release, "I gave separate instructions that this (ie, that a police unit not be allowed to investigate the actions of its own officers) serve as a precedent in future cases." -------------- -- FLEXIBILITY IN RELEASE OF REMAINING 15 DETAINEES -------------- -- ¶5. (C) The Ambassador noted to the PG that a key message of EUR DAS Kaidanow's visit was a request to Armenia's leaders to free the remaining 15 political detainees still in prison in connection with the disputed 2008 presidential election. The Ambassador stated to the PG that the price of keeping the detainees in prison far outweighed the cost involved in their release, and that the benefits of the release would prove significant to improving Armenia's international image as well as the trust of its citizens. The PG stuck to his guns, however, and upon his perusal of the non-paper list of detainees the Ambassador gave him, began to comment on he particulars of several of the cases, arguing that some were involved in violent acts and could not be released. He also criticized the overall politicization of the issue, complaining that there were numerous lists circulating that various elements of the opposition--including wives of the detained who demonstrated outside his building every Friday--bandied about to exaggerate the innocence of the detained for their own political ends. ¶6. (C) The PG additionally asserted that after the March 2008 events "we prosecuted oppositionists as well as pro-govermental forces." The Ambassador replied that approximately 120 oppositionists had been jailed and tried, in contrast with only a handful of pro-government individuals, and that this was the core problem with the issue of the detainees--their arrests appeared politically motivated, as does the continuing incarceration of the remaining 15. The Ambassador requested that the PG look into the cases of the remaining detainees once again (reftel),and that Armenia demonstrate as much flexibility as it can within the confines of the law in considering further releases. The PG said he would look at the list in detail and provide his feedback in the near future. -------------- -------------- NEED TO PUT END TO ATTACKS ON JOURNALISTS, IMPUNITY -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) The Ambassador also urged the PG and his office to aggressively prosecute the string of heinous and chilling attacks on journalists, noting that as long as these attacks went unresolved and the perpetrators unpunished, an atmosphere of impunity would reign, and journalists would continue to feel intimidated for trying to carry out their jobs. The Ambassador raised in particular the attacks on Edik Baghdassarian (November 2008),Argishti Kivirian (April 2009),and Nver Mnatsakanian (May 2009),and how they had either been unresolved or resolved in such a way as to call into question the authorities' commitment to truly punishing the real perpetrators. The PG responded that there was much more than meets the eye on such cases, and that these attacks were rarely black-and-white cases that allowed prosecutors to go full bore on them. ¶8. (C) On the Baghdassarian attack, he took the Ambassador's point that to date only one of the several attackers had been apprehended and prosecuted; that said, he shared that he is "hopeful" that the convicted attacker will "be helpful" in bringing to justice his accomplices. On the Kivirian attack, which reportedly involved gunshots directed at Kivirian, the PG said "no one in Kivirian's apartment building, except his wife, told investigators that they heard gun shots," and as a result he had problems believing the reported chain of events. (COMMENT: We take the PG's claim with a grain of salt, for two reasons: a) a relative of one of our FSNs who lives in Kivirian's apartment building where the attack took place said she heard the gunshots; and b) most Armenians are afraid to get involved as witnesses in such cases out of fear that they will be subject to coercion or even worse for speaking up. END COMMENT.) He also said that in general, in many of these cases, there were no witnesses to the attacks. He added that he had doubts in Kivirian's case due to the delay of Kivirian and his wife--a prominent lawyer who was the defense lawyer for the ex-Deputy Prosecutor General also arrested after the disputed election once he publicly contested the results--in providing their testimony after the attack. Calling into question alleged political motivations behind the attack, the PG cautioned in general about the politicization of such attacks, and accused the opposition of using them to sell more newspapers. The Ambassador said that in this case the best way to depoliticize such attacks was to YEREVAN 00000771 003.2 OF 004 do just that--investigate and prosecute them to clearly demonstrate that other, non-political motives were responsible for the attacks. -------------- COMBATING CORRUPTION KEY TO DEVELOPMENT -------------- ¶9. (C) The Ambassador raised the issue of corruption and the lack of transparency as core rule of law issues that strike right at the heart of Armenia's ability to be able to develop economically and politically. In soliciting the PG's views on corruption, the Ambassador noted America's long, arduous struggle with corruption, and that the only way to combat it are for the highest levels in the land to set good examples with their own behavior and for punishment of corruption to be applied equally--to average citizens and powerful people alike. The PG agreed with the Ambassador, and said while Armenia has just adopted an anti-corruption strategy for 2009-12, "nothing will change until 'somebody' is punished." The PG confided that he meets with President Sargsian once a week and that the president often slams his fists on the table demanding that offenders be punished. The PG told the Ambassador that "I want people to trust me," and "I want you to believe I seek an Armenia without corruption," but "I want our fight to be real, and not just for show." ¶10. (C) The PG then said he will launch a new campaign against corruption "by starting with my own office." "We have to start with ourselves," he said, "and clean our own ranks," and that "all of my prosecutors know my thinking on this." He told the Ambassador that "I will fire anyone even allegedly involved in corruption from my office." The PG then defended his office's anti-corruption efforts, arguing that the number of persons prosecuted for corruption has increased "to several hundred" in recent years. (COMMENT: In a somewhat ominous reference which continued to confirm Post's long-held suspicions that the PG metes out justice on a personally-tinged basis, the PG boasted of his college schoolmate being arrested for corruption the day before, "after I had warned him many times to be careful." The PG added that "I'm not losing any sleep over it, though, since I warned him to stop." END COMMENT.) The Ambassador encouraged the PG to ensure the upcoming campaign is a successful and credible one, and cautioned that it not be perceived as an anti-opposition campaign. The PG smiled and said it cannot be so, since corruption is a problem that comes from within the ranks of those in or holding public positions. -------------- -------------- ZAKHARYANTS CASE AND ANTI-TRAFFICKING COOPERATION WITH TURKEY -------------- -------------- ¶11. (C) When thanking the Ambassador for her recognition of Armenia's stepped-up efforts to combat trafficking at the outset of the meeting, the PG mentioned the difficulty he had had in deciding not to criminally punish "an investigator" in the PG's office who was leading Armenia's anti-trafficking drive at the time of the 2006 case of the escaped Uzbek trafficker Anush Zakharyants. The PG said, "what was I do--fire my best investigator who was personally responsible for improving our anti-trafficking track record? How would others have viewed his removal? Thank God we're now over this." The Ambassador revisited the Zakharyants case twice during the meeting, saying that while Armenia has indeed made progress in anti-trafficking, as reflected by its improved annual anti-TIP ranking, the United States still needs to see an investigation into the case that results in a conviction(s) of officials for criminal conduct. (NOTE: In response to Embassy pressure, the GOAM launched a new criminal investigation of the case in December 2008; on June 2, at a meeting with the PG, an official from the Special Investigative Service presented the Ambassador with extensive documentation about the case whose purpose, as Post found out upon reading them, was to justify that GOAM actions taken to place on the case were sufficient in and of themselves. END NOTE.) ¶12. (C) The PG visibly warmed to the Ambassador's offer to attempt to foster anti-trafficking cooperation between Armenia's and Turkey's law enforcement agencies. The Ambassador noted that this kind of cooperation could potentially serve as a confidence-building measure between Turkey and Armenia at an historic. The PG said he had in the past personally favored and sought broader law enforcement cooperation, but was unsuccessful, not because of lack of interest by his Turkish colleagues, whom he said had been receptive to the idea, but by "political developments outside our mutual control." The Ambassador noted that Armenia's police and the MFA had recently contacted the Embassy to see if it could help with the investigation of Gohar (Kilinc) YEREVAN 00000771 004.2 OF 004 Kirakosyan, an ethnic Armenian trafficker residing as a naturalized Turkish citizen in Trabzon, Turkey, and that the Embassy in Yerevan was willing to contact the U.S. Embassy in Ankara to initiate law enforcement cooperation on the case. But the Ambassador cautioned that she was willing to pursue this avenue only if Armenian law enforcement were serious about cooperating on this case, and willing to share all case materials with Turkish law enforcement when the time comes. The PG replied that "Armenia is willing to cooperate with Turkey--even with Satan--to punish traffickers." The Ambassador said the Embassy would share the information from the police and MFA, so the PG could familiarize himself with the case, and would wait for his response before proceeding. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶13. (C) This latest meeting with the PG went better than expected, and was more cordial than many of the numerous meetings the Ambassador has had with Hovsepian. With the releases of the civil society activists, Post has begun to detect some new receptivity by the PG to the human rights and rule of law issues on which we engage. While the releases were just a first step, we hope that with deliberate and careful prodding, we may be able to persuade the PG to take additional positive steps. We found his enthusiasm regarding law enforcement cooperation with Turkey interesting and hope that we will be able to pursue this. Unfortunately, Hovsepian's response on his anti-corruption efforts--with all its dramatic detail--did not strike us as sincere; however, we will continue to pursue this issue with the PG. PENNINGTON