Ref.: AI Index EUR 54/01/92

EXTERNAL

29 May 1992

@Sevak Misakovich YEDIGARYAN, Vagarsh Agvanovich OVANYAN, Zaven Nikolaevich

SARGSYAN

(in cyrillic Севак Мисакович ЕДИГАРЯН, Вагарш Агванович ОВАНЯН, Завен

Николаевич САРГСЯН

£Republic of Armenia

Amnesty International is appealing for the death sentences passed on Sevak Yedigaryan, Vagarsh Ovanyan and Zaven Sargsyan to be commuted. All three were sentenced to death for aggravated murder by the Supreme Court of Armenia in separate trials in 1990, and are currently held in a prison in Yerevan, the capital, pending the outcome of their petitions for clemency.

Sevak Yedigaryan was born in 1968 and comes from the Ararat district of Armenia. He was sentenced to death on 18 July 1990 for the rape and murder of an underage female relative on 2 March that year. Vagarsh Ovanyan was born in 1957 in the Matuni district. Accused of the rape and murder of his sister-in-law on 18 May 1990, he was sentenced to death on 10 December 1990. Zaven Sargsyan, born in 1954, was sentenced to death on 29 June 1990 after being convicted of murdering a neighbour in a fight three months earlier.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases and without reservation, on the grounds that it is a violation of the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Amnesty International is appealing to the authorities in the Republic of Armenia to commute the death sentences passed on Sevak Yedigaryan, Vagarsh Ovanyan and Zaven Sargsyan.

Background information

Recent information on the death penalty in Armenia was passed to Amnesty International by the republic's representative in Moscow. According to this official Armenia retains the death penalty for a total of 32 crimes in peace and war time. With regard to statistics, four death sentences were passed in 1989, three in 1990 (those enumerated above) and none in 1991. The last executions took place on 30 August 1991, when two of those sentenced to death in 1989 were shot. The sentences of the other two people tried that year were commuted.