Anahit Ghukasyan, the daughter of 57-year-old Julieta Ghukasyan, who was killed in the Slabodka district of the town of Gyumri early in December, is unable to admit that her mother is no more.
On that day at 7 am an unknown person attacked a woman who was cleaning the street and brutally beat her. Julieta Ghukasyan died on the way to hospital.
“I cannot believe such a thing has happened. She was such a caring parent, she used to call frequently to check out if I have eaten, asked me to be careful of the cars in the streets… I do not know what to do now. She was not just a parent for me; she was everything – father, mother, sister, brother,” unable to conceal her tears, the daughter of the murdered woman says to Forrights.am, adding that she does not know any other such a caring mother. “Now I am full orphan.”
Anahit lives today with her bedridden grandmother in an emergency building in the Slabodka district of Gyumri. “I would not wish my worst enemy to be in this situation. I wish I were blind and didn’t see my mother in that state. You cannot imagine in what state she was,” continued Anahit. I hope the real murderer will be punished. Was he born of a human being or a monster? A human being wouldn’t be able to treat another person that way; Does he not have parents, any sacred thing? I do not understand what’s going on.”
The RA Prosecutor General’s Office today confirmed to the media that a soldier of the 102nd Russian military base in Gyumri was arrested today on suspicion of brutal murder of the 57-year-old woman in Gyumri. Earlier, a criminal case was initiated on instigating intentional injuries, which negligently resulted the death of the victim.
“We do not have people who would like to do harm to us. What have we done to anybody to want to do such a thing to us? What did she have to do with a Russian soldier in order him to do such a thing?” Anahit asks and states: “She had no enemies. My mother was a smart, gentle, innocent woman, a family keeper. We never had any enemies. She quietly was going to work, coming back, taking care of her bedridden mother. I cannot believe that a Russian soldier could do such a thing.”
Anahit did not even have money for her mother’s burial. She applied to the municipality to carry out her funeral. “Because we are not able to. We do not have any other relatives, there were only my grandmother, my mom and I. So, they [the municipality] took care of the burial expenses,” Anahit again cries.
Why the Russian soldier was arrested only after the elections?
The day after the Gyumri murder case, the media wrote that there were rumors that a Gyumri soldier killed the woman. But the Armenian authorities and mainly the Russian side categorically denied the information. The media reported on the day of the incident that, according to the residents of the Slabodka district, the one who brutally beat the woman was a young man, as recorded by a video camera, that he had closely followed the woman and beaten her with indescribable brutality.
The press service in the southern Russian military district located in Rostov had sharply denied that the serviceman of the military base has beaten and killed the woman in Gyumri.
The Russian Embassy in Armenia went even farther “grumbling” against the media. “Such a high level of non-professional approach to the information creates abstruseness: they, completely neglecting the
presumption of innocence, publish unverified and unconfirmed data under shocking titles,” the embassy stated and continued: “Such irresponsible behavior, especially in this uneasy period of the elections, is beneficial to the forces that want to drive a wedge in strategic and traditional friendly relations between Armenia and Russia.”
Karen Gabrielyan, Prosecutor of the Shirak region, did not “cede” to the Russian side in his denial. “There was a woman with bodily injuries who died: where is the connection with the 102nd Russian military base here?”
Forrights.am inquired from the Prosecutor General’s Office about the reason why the arrest of the suspect was so late, and is it possible that the Armenian side did not want to negatively touch the name of the Russian military base during the pre-election period? We also asked to explain the Shirak prosecutor’s denials earlier.
According to the spokesperson of the Prosecutor General’s Office Gor Abrahamian, “on December 10, the conclusion of the forensic examination was obtained, which, in conjunction with other facts obtained, resulted a person’s arrest. That is, the arrest was not related and could not be related to any other circumstances,” assured the prosecutor’s representative.
Marine Kharatyan