Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed: Hello everyone and welcome to this Conversations on Groong episode. We’re going to discuss a difficult and disturbing case in this show. In Armenia today, political opponents can be jailed before any final judgment, while in Vedi, men suspected of a sexual abuse case involving minors appear to have remained free for months. This is a pretty horrific case involving vulnerable children, alleged rape and sexual abuse, and a law-enforcement response that reeks of gross negligence or potentially like a cover-up.
Supporters of the government may say not to politicize this, but when delays may have left suspects free and more children exposed to harm, there must be proper accountability. This is a sensitive topic and we want to discuss it with care while respecting the rights and privacy of the victims. We did not feel it would be right to monetize this episode, so monetization has been turned off for this show.
Hovik: Yeah, and just as a disclaimer, everyone accused in this case is presumed innocent unless and until proven in a court of law. We are discussing public reports and official statements and the known timeline and the conduct of state institutions. And our focus is not to prejudge any defendant, but to ask whether the authorities acted properly protected the victims and met their legal and political responsibilities. On with the show.
Asbed: Tatevik Soghoyan, welcome to the Groong Podcast.
Soghoyan: Hello, everyone, and thank you for having me tonight.
Asbed: Welcome, Tatevik. Ms. Soghoyan, before we dig into the details of this case, tell us your role in it and how you’re involved in this case.
Soghoyan: I am involved as an just ordinary citizen and lawyer. I am observing the situation very close up because it has both dimensions as a very harsh crime and As a vivid example how the system of law-enforcement and their non-competence could bring to the systematic failure and to the situation where people start making justice on their own.
Hovik: In fact, we will talk maybe about some of this later today. For several days now, the Armenian society has been shocked by news coming out of Vedi about a horrific case involving alleged abuse of multiple vulnerable minors in the town. And the media talks about it as a criminal cover-up. There are a lot of clues that point to that.
But at the best case, I would say, criminal negligence, where the police did not give priority to this case for months. And as a result, more victims were harmed. Now, public reports suggest that for a period, the alleged offenders may not have been treated as suspects, but as witnesses. They may not have been given the appropriate classification.
Especially considering the urgency involving minors. Only after the media started publishing about this, the Investigative Committee put out an announcement that raised, I think, more questions than answered. Also talked about it in a Facebook post. But before we go into that, can you tell us about the timeline?
What is this case about? What happened in Vedi? Who reported it? When did the law-enforcement get involved at a very high level?
And then we can go into details.
Soghoyan: It all became evident by the efforts of journalist Suzy Badoyan. who is now closely in contact with the victims and their families. So I will interpret what she said in her recent interview saying that it all started approximately autumn and winter last year when the alleged criminal DA, let’s say, was involved in dealings with the elder daughter of the family and it isn’t still now clear how it started. It’s known that this man is a taxi driver in the city and somehow managed to get in contact with high school The first victim.
And after that, after having several periods of these abuses, when it turned into abuses, the alleged criminal felt that he is being already suspected and needed to cover up. And in order to be covered up, decided to involve another male also so they both can guard let’s say each other and it was horrific since as the journalist says that they decided to involve also the other male and further to also victimize the junior sister of the victim and once they even took both girls to cemetery to rape them and the girl saw how while raping the other girl the man was catching her throat and threatening that if you tell anyone about the incident.
I will kill you. I will kill your family. And they, of course, have been scared and very much dependent on their cell phone. They were threatened, scared.
And this took until, let’s say, February, when suddenly just during the end there somehow it’s not clear yet also there was a involved another third man so-called “barerar” … benefactor yeah or I guess yes that allegedly now he’s also involved in that system systematically abusing the sisters
Hovik: And just to clarify, these are very socially vulnerable. It’s a socially vulnerable family. They are poor and this benefactor was essentially also somehow he claims he was providing aid to the family, right? Is that correct?
Soghoyan: Yes, yes. Delivering sweets or other food to kids and others.
Asbed: How old are these girls just for everybody’s information?
Soghoyan: 15 and 17 years old. So somehow the psychologists of school noticed that The elder girl is distracted, is scared and every time during the classes she is focused on her phone and asked the girl to open her cell phone and to give to see what’s happening, why is she so much worried and once the girl gave the phone she scrolled the messages and found voice message from that benefactor with very suspicious content that why are you scared? Why don’t you reply?
If you don’t get in contact with me, if you don’t pick up my calls, I will tell everyone what happened with the first alleged criminal, with the Uncle D.. and they suspected they kept the phone the specialist informed director of the school and the director as estimated by my fellow colleagues advocates the only good people here and the ones who acted in accordance with law and for the sake of good of children. The director immediately called the police saying that I have allegations of abuse of these children. And the director never thought that it could mean that police would do nothing.
I don’t know why the spokesperson of the Investigative Committee on her Facebook post mentioned that initially the report was from the father of the girls because so far by the interviews based on media I see that the first alert went from the director of the school.
We see that twice or once the girls were testimonied without the presence of their guards, without the presence of a psychologist, without the presence of the same-sex investigator by the male investigators, having maybe that questioned in a very rude way I don’t want to assume the formulas how the questions may have sound which led to the situation that the girl were more scared and gave the contradicting testimonies which were further interpreted very unprofessionally and ethically by the spokesperson of the investigative committee that since the testimonies were contradictory and taking into consideration that these girls had some mental illnesses which was not the point it was totally unnecessary to underline or to bring as an argument for their errors or omissions, let’s say.
The spokesperson wanted to justify their conduct by saying that when we had the contradicting testimonies from the mentally ill victim, we wouldn’t proceed to go and to investigate or to suspect these alleged criminals.
Hovik: Tatevik, just for our listeners, I want to also just give a little bit more detail because the media is raising questions why this case was… There are two cases. The first report was in February. I believe the second report was in April.
The alleged perpetrators were not arrested. They were not questioned as or they were not treated as suspects. And only recently, like a few days ago, were at least some of them arrested. Is that is that correct?
So I think that is the context in which the it’s important to understand the context. Right. And then the Investigative Committee sends out the statement saying, well, the girls gave conflicting testimony.
Soghoyan: Yes, and the thing is that, as I assume from what I see, is that the abuses were continued from February to April and that’s why it gave rise to the anger of society, of the family, why these people are still not arrested. Yes, and that led to why this was so much highlighted is because almost everyone already knew what happened and these men were still walking freely in the city and the taxi driver was taking rides and others uncle of victim became frustrated. They relied on police, they relied on law-enforcement system, and they saw nothing.
And I don’t want to bring to other comparisons how, for example, if an, let’s say, opposition-minded person would do something or claim something or offend someone, will be immediately arrested and while we have this really grave crime of having raped two underage girls, wouldn’t give any rise to do something to these agencies. This uncle became frustrated and wanted to hurt one of the main criminals and attacked with a knife but didn’t cause any serious injury, just wanted to revenge from that.
And this is another indicator of how It comes to self-justice when the system is not working and only after the attack of Ankal on the alleged criminal, it became known to the journalists and they started to investigate the case and the thing is that on an initial stage there were denials from the head of the marz/province but later they apologized for their denial yeah
Hovik: Good thing. Was it because the uncle of the children took action in their own hands or was it because the story started being publicized by the media
Soghoyan: Both. It was more, of course, the major role was played by Suzy Badoyan with consistent publishing and collecting evidence because she collected all the evidence, who the perpetrators were, where the perpetrator was, in which hospital he took the medical care. She took testimonies from the girls, from families and everything so that There is no way for the law-enforcement agencies to cover it up. Cover it up, yes.
Hovik: After the case became public, just recently, a few days ago, five officials from the Ararat Province were removed or resigned. We don’t know which one. And they’re mostly either from the police system, the investigators, and even the prosecutor of the Ararat Province. He claimed he resigned.
And then we started hearing statements from government officials, including the Prosecutor General, that they didn’t know anything about this. They heard about it from the media. Nobody reported it to them. And then even Nikol Pashinyan went on to say that it was the police that discovered this crime as part of their operative, quote-unquote, operative work.
And in fact, the only reason we know about it is because someone in the police leaked it and interestingly enough, he promised to punish the leakers. Meanwhile, all of these animals were walking free in the town. Is there any truth to Pashinyan’s statements?
Soghoyan: No, it is beyond doubt that the first alert went from went from the school, from the victim side, from a third party. And it is already beyond doubt that police, at least police and at least Investigative Committee were interested to cover up the case because it is also informed that this alleged criminal for so many years was the unofficial informant of the police he was an informant yeah yes informant and that’s how somehow that can clarify why they are interested in covering.
Hovik: Is that an established fact or is that being reported by Badoyan?
Soghoyan: It’s well spoken, like everyone knows that taxi driver in the city as the informant of the police. That’s how his nickname is. The second factor may be that there are some Family ties with the Minister of Interior Affairs because the Minister herself is from that city.
Hovik: Let me just also add a warning because it’s still fresh. So we’re doing our best to give you what we understand is the case. But I think we should also have presumption of innocence in mind. But, you know, I can say one thing, like whatever the government is saying so far is more contradictory than their claim about the girls yeah and
Soghoyan: for our listeners to imagine the system how it works we have the three-tiered system the bottom level, the first level of taking the notice that worked or didn’t work in this way but received the alert is the police that should collect evidence that it sees that it is an alleged crime do more operative work and transfer the information to initiate the criminal case for the Investigative Committee and here for the Investigative Committee all the essential orders and motions and decisions are made by the prosecutor, so the supervisor of the investigators’ conduct is the prosecutor so that’s why.
First of all, we had the resignation of the prosecutor because he stands above all this system, immediately is responsible for conducting the proper investigation. The prosecutor resigned himself and the rest four officials. Two, I guess, from the Investigative Committee, the chiefs of the city and from the police were removed from the office.
But I don’t think it is enough because we are not speaking only of the misconduct that led to no harm, but we are speaking to a misconduct which led to double triple victimization of these young girls they were continued to be abused and they were due to their misconduct with having this all I don’t I’m out of words to describe how unprofessional were their conduct towards these girls.
Once this became evident and publicized all over the media, while the attorneys were giving a press release to the press describing all these things, police called these victims, these girls and their families, and started to threaten them that you should immediately come and give testimony in the police station. And the family said, no, we are not going to take the girls and they are not going to give testimonies unless the attorneys are there. The police officers threatened them saying that you will regret for not coming to us.
And there was also another incident that the police worked so unprofessionally that they even called the husband of this victim’s aunt and offended him or used swear words which led to another altercation between the police It feels like we are not dealing with police, but with a gang with its own interests and its own code of ethics, let’s say, and or its absence.
Hovik: Would I be too sarcastic if I said that this is completely counter to the images you see when they arrest opposition members and all these pictures of people being dragged on the floor with masks coming in, with guns blazing, trying to arrest everyone? They seem very professional then. But anyway, sorry. That was just a rhetorical question.
Soghoyan: It is totally unclear for the society what crime should be punished so brutally and what is not. And it affects not only the victims but our general understanding what is punishable and in general what is good and what is bad in this society and for this country.
Asbed: I completely support that statement because Hovik and I were talking about how the Investigative Committee was saying that from April 22nd to May 7, the timeframe is an acceptable period of response, tactically speaking, and yet how Within 36 hours between the time when, for example, Samvel Karapetyan said that we will support the Church in our way, there were people who had arrested him and thrown him in jail. You know, we talked about, do we politicize, do we not politicize? But when we are talking, like Hovik said, that there are children, young girls who are left to harm like this, there must be accountability somehow.
Soghoyan: And to mention, to add to this, No further immediate steps were taken when the first alert came. So no examination of clothes, no examination, no even taking the phones of alleged criminals to say whether there are some messages or calls between the victim and the accused or suspect. So nothing was done. It’s not the thing that they were collecting evidence against alleged criminals.
No, they did nothing. And now, just the other day, I knew that they took the clothes of the victims after they have been washed for several times.
Asbed: Yeah, I have more questions about the competence of these bodies in dealing with this. Did the Investigative Committee’s public statements violate the victim’s privacy or reinforce stigma? Because it seems to me that initially what I read in these articles, they seem to be putting the blame on the victim itself. And of course, we know that they let the alleged criminals free for two or three months.
Soghoyan: Yeah, first they put a very unethical stigma of having mental issues. Second, they put the burden of proving the crime on the victim, saying that since she didn’t Provide comprehensive evidence on what happened. We were unable to proceed. It is another thing.
How can an underage victim with the serious trauma do the job and why in that place why all this Investigative Committee works. and the third thing which is totally out of morality and ethics is that they used the wording that reads the girl had sexual interactions with another man as if there
Hovik: was consent you know i mean yeah basically alleging that she’s She’s not a virgin or whatever. I guess that’s the intention. Well, we’re talking about a minor here.
Asbed: We don’t get past the issue that we’re talking about a minor and it’s illegal.
Hovik: Yeah, exactly. Now, several government officials, Pashinyan talked about it as well, they said, I think even the Ministry of Internal Affairs, they said, you know, they had the victims’ best intentions in mind when they didn’t disclose anything about this for all this time. And public disclosure would harm the victims, and they urged the media not to, you know, make a big deal out of this. Is that the case?
I mean, is it the media’s fault that these girls are being harmed?
Soghoyan: With due respect to our journalists, I don’t know even the names of the victims. So they worked professionally to cover the identities of girls. Of course, considering the situation that the city is small, in the village in the city they everyone knows everyone and they probably knew who the incident is about but there were no images of the victims, no names and no further details provided by journalists the only body that made it more identifiable or targeted the victims was the Investigative Committee’s statement.
The journalists have started and alerted the situation once they saw that law enforcement agencies do nothing and this was approved by the statement of the prosecutor general in the Parliament of Armenia when she responded that she became aware only when it became public before that apparently no one reported her about this alleged crime or these proceedings and further on that it was the Investigative Committee head that in order to cover their misconduct he said that their actions are explained by the best interest of the children which is not the case for sure because because the best interest would lead you at least to arrest the criminals yeah
Hovik: Tatevik, several officials have been removed, but the public question, I think, remains. Is this a localized failure or does it point to deeper institutional breakdowns maybe? It raises a broader question, right? When law-enforcement fails to protect, like you say, minors in a small community, where does the responsibility end?
And also, is it credible that senior officials including the Minister of Internal Affairs were unaware of the case until media reports appeared.
Soghoyan: It definitely speaks on the systematic problem and another problematic emphasis that I notice is the notice of Prosecutor General that why are you surprised society, why do you find it surprising because we have a range of similar crimes in Shirak Province in other regions, so it’s not an exceptional case, but it is the. Sexual violations as such are repeated crimes throughout the system. So it is only with our efforts that you become aware of this kind of crimes, which is also another problem.
I find it very problematic that puts the emphasis on the society, but not the problems of the law-enforcement agencies in revealing the truth and punishing the criminals. And to add on this, I find that when we are speaking about the politicization of the law-enforcement system, we every time say that it not only harms the so-called politicians who are involved in political dealings, but also it harms the whole system, while the law-enforcement agencies are focused on political cases or other cases that are marked as priority for their supervisors, they become negligent to the rest, let’s say, non-political cases.
And this leads to another situation when professionals working in their system just leave the system. They don’t want to work in a system where it’s all aimed to protecting some political interests. And it all led some incapable or unwilling or unprofessional, I don’t want to categorize, but to personnel who are unable to conduct due proceedings. And that’s why we all the time, as I’m also the representative of ACPR, Armenian Center for Political Rights, We all the time underline that political cases do not only affect merely the political cases, but also cases like this.
Asbed: Right. Tatevik, just a couple of questions on the systemic causes that you are pointing out here. Just wondering if Armenia actually has a working child protection system, if there’s a way to deal with sexual abuse victims. Where are the NGOs that we’ve heard about that take care of, for example, women in need and such things?
I just haven’t heard anything from them.
Soghoyan: Neither have I. I have some statements from the NGOs I never heard before, just condemning the act of violence. But further, we haven’t seen any psychological support or any protection that was provided to specifically this family. Formerly, we always heard about the aid they provide, the protection, maybe the legal assistance they provide, but to my knowledge, for this incident, no NGO was involved before it became public and all the attorneys that were involved, they involved by the mediation of journalists the invitation of journalists and on their own will so they initiated in protecting their rights not the NGOs but the sole attorneys.
Asbed: Do you think that poverty played a role with the situation that this family finds itself in. One of the reasons why I’m asking this question is because over the past eight years, even at Pashinyan’s admission, there’s only been a small, a tiny reduction, like one or two percent reduction in poverty, despite the fact that the national debt has doubled. And, you know, we’ve piled on a lot of debt, but I don’t see any alleviation to the poverty in the country. So I’d like to know if these people were victims of their situation.
Soghoyan: Indeed, they live in poor condition and they have many issues and but both the parents of victims are municipal workers, low level workers, so barely having the conditions of making their ends meet.
So indeed this played role because as it is the pattern of such crimes, it always happens with the vulnerable groups, both social, economic and mental Mentally Vulnerable Groups and this calls the NGOs, the law-enforcement agencies to monitor closely the situations, not to bring it as an argument for not having enough knowledge to precisely describe the incidents, but to investigate more in details how these vulnerable groups can be the victims of such crimes. Because, of course, well-educated people, they are less likely to become victims of crimes than these vulnerable groups.
Asbed: Absolutely, absolutely. One final question, and I’m going to guess that we don’t have enough time in this show for you to answer this. What specific legal reforms do you recommend to head off problems like this in the future? I’m sure there are a million problems out there, so it’s very difficult to answer this.
Soghoyan: It’s the problem of those who are enforcing this law. Because the system, I have explained the three-tiered system, police, Investigative Committee and prosecutor, are separate organizations. They are separate organs and they are supposed to have these checks and balances against each other and supervising. But while the system is corrupted, While the one agency is covering the mistakes or misconduct of the other agency, there is no legal reform that can tackle this issue.
I guess here, and I may reiterate another time that maybe an Anti-Corruption Committee has work to do in bringing to justice to those officials who made this misconduct. Because no resignation, no removal from offices can be a just response to the situation that happened. Because it has also the elements of crime, their misconduct, I believe, has elements of crime in it.
Hovik: Tatevik, thank you for discussing this very heavy topic, but I think it’s useful to discuss it because only through discussion, only through coverage, as the evidence shows, can we Achieve solidarity and truth and figure out how to improve things. So I want to thank you for joining us. And before we leave, I also want to tell everyone that despite everything we said, all the accused should be presumed innocent until proven in a court of law. And we will leave it at that.
Thank you for joining us.
Asbed: Yeah, this is a live investigation. Thank you very much. This is a live investigation. So there are a lot of unknowns.
We don’t know the outcome. But I also want to add one more thing. I really want to commend Suzy Badoyan for diligently following through with this investigation in a sensitive way, in a way that respects everybody’s rights and to have the courage to do a methodical job on this. So kudos to Badoyan.
Hovik: That’s the end of our show, folks. It was recorded on May 9, 2026. We were talking with Tatevik Soghoyan, who is a public law and international relations specialist currently practicing as an attorney in Armenia. As a niece of a victim of enforced disappearance during the 2020 Artsakh War, she also advocates for the humanitarian rights of missing persons and their families.
Perhaps we’ll have her on in the future to talk about those issues as well. And Tatevik holds a BA and an MA in law from Yerevan State University, as well as an MA in International Relations from MGIMO University, and also UNITAR. You can find out more about her in our show notes on our website. With that, we say goodbye.
I’m Hovik Manucharyan. And I’m Asbed Bedrossian.
Asbed: We’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.