Between 1 January and 20 February 2019, 4 deaths of servicemen of the Armed Forces of Armenia and the Defense Army of Artsakh (not linked to military service) were recorded, including 2 deaths caused by illnesses and 2 deaths caused by car accidents. This is what Advisor to Armenia’s Prosecutor General Gor Abrahamyan posted on his Facebook page.

“An attempt is being made to present the deaths not linked to military service, presented in the information that the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Armenia provided in response to Tert.am’s inquiry in regard to the deaths recorded in the period between 1 January and 20 February in the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh, as intentionally concealed deaths through the manipulative effect.

Since this concerns a moral and delicate issue such as the death of a person and particularly a person in military service on the one hand and the extremely major factor of public confidence in the armed forces, I am compelled to announce the major circumstances behind the deaths not linked to military service in order to prevent subsequent artificial speculations.

I leave it up to readers’ rational and reasonable judgment to determine the extent to which those cases are linked to military service and on-duty service, the extent to which the people who, unfortunately, died as a result of those incidents, be viewed as victims, and the extent to which concealing those incidents could make any sense in general.

In the period between 1 January and 20 February 2019, there were 4 deaths not linked to military service recorded by the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia and the Defense Army of the Republic of Artsakh. Two of the deaths were linked to illnesses, and another two were linked to car accidents.

In particular:

1. G. G. Chobanyan, contractual sergeant, got into a car accident and died during a shift service at 21:30 in the 141st km section of the Yerevan-Noyemberyan road on 1 January 2019

2. S. G. Gevorgyan, subaltern, on 6 January 2019, he checked into the hospital of the city of Martakert and was diagnosed with hypertensive crisis, ischemic disease and an ulcer. At around 11:50, his biological death was recorded.

3. Kh. S. Gevorgyan, contractual private, on 13 January 2019 at around 22:00, he clashed with a truck of a citizen of Iran with his car on the 374th section of the Yerevan-Meghri road and died on the spot.

4. K. T. Lalayan, Lieutenant, on 24 January 2019 at around 23:15, his biological death was recorded in the ambulance truck, he was diagnosed with cancer.

As a matter of fact, there are groundless speculations that the number of deaths in the armed forces has increased compared with the previous year. I deem it necessary to inform that whereas a total of 7 deaths were recorded in the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh in the period between 1 January and 20 February 2019 (3 deaths linked to military service, 4 not linked to military service), in the same period of 2018, a total of 11 cases were recorded, of which 6 were linked to military service and 5 were not linked to military service,” wrote the Advisor to the Prosecutor General.