Boy Found Murdered Dead in Gyumri
In what is the most shocking story that I have heard in the nearly nine years I’ve been here, RFE/RL reports that the decomposed corpse of a dead boy has been finally found, his body apparently riddled with shrapnel. Nobody is going to buy that story since the 12- year old boy, Robert Simonian, went missing on the same day as a high profile gun fight between two groups of men that included the son of the Mayor of Armenia’s second largest city, Gyumri, on 20 May.
Prosecutors in Yerevan confirmed on Thursday reports that Simonian was found dead in a makeshift house the previous night shortly after the stench of his decomposing body was felt by residents of adjacent home. A family that owns the house left Gyumri seven years ago and it has been empty since then.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Prosecutor-General, Sona Truzian, told RFE/RL that the local police and prosecutors believe that he was apparently killed by a hand grenade or another military explosive device. “A [preliminary] examination of the site and the body found numerous traces of splinters from military ammunition on Robert Simonian’s body and the walls, floor and ceiling of the house,” she said. “The precise cause of the death will be determined by a forensic examination.”
Asked whether there might be a connection between the boy’s death and the May 20 shootout, Truzian said, “We will be able to answer this question only after the end of the inquiry, when the cause of the child’s death is ascertained.”
The prosecutors said earlier that the gunfight, which left at least two people wounded, was between two groups of local youths led by Ghukasian’s notorious son Spartak and Rustam Sargsian, son of a prominent local businessman. They were promptly charged under relevant articles of the Armenian Criminal Code. But despite official arrest warrants, both young men and most of their alleged accomplices remain at large, with the investigators claiming to have been unable to track them down so far.
The Gyumri mayor, who narrowly survived an apparent assassination attempt in April, claims that he is unaware of his son’s whereabouts. He is a senior member of the governing Republican Party of Armenia (HHK).
Ghukasian and members of his family, who have extensive business interests in a city still reeling from the catastrophic 1988 earthquake, have repeatedly been linked with violent incidents reported in Gyumri in recent years. The latest high-profile gunshots deepened a widespread sense of insecurity reigning among local people. Many of them feel that the Ghukasian family and other local business clans enjoy impunity thanks to their wealthy and government connections.
The abandoned shelter where Simonian’s body was found is not far from another makeshift house where the dead boy lived with his parents. The police claimed to have combed the entire Gyumri slum with sniffer dogs in the days that followed his disappearance. It is not clear why they failed to detect the corpse and why neighbors did smell its foul odor earlier.
Although nobody is directly linking the shootout with the boy’s disappearance and death, although plenty have implied it since 20 May, had there coincidentally been an explosion unconnected with the shootout that day, local residents would have presumably heard it as RFE/RL reports. Certainly, the fact that Simonian died from a hand grenade or “another military explosive device” on the same day as the shootout is pretty telling as it stands.
And if the two incidents are connected, this undoubtedly is the most disgusting story I’ve heard of in Armenia to date, and one that should result in huge protests not only in the city where the crime took place, but also smaller scale demonstrations in the capital of any country where society still has some semblance of consciousness.
A1 Plus also carries the news.
I can only guess that the boy was a witness to the shootout and could have identified those involved. He must have hid in the shed and they found him, then threw a grenade in there. What doesn’t make sense is that no one heard the grenade go off, and that no one bothered to search the shed as the article points out. It is indeed a horrible story, and those implicated in the shootout should be charged with murder. Charging Gyumri’s mayor as an accomplice to murder would be a good start.
Comment by Christian — July 13, 2007 @ 10:36 am
Garo (aka Christian Garbis) has now made a post on the discovery of the dead boy’s body over at Notes from Hairenik:
Comment by Onnik — July 13, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
from what i hear from the folks in gyumri is that the kid was most probably killed at the initial shootout rather than killed afterwards as the reports seem to imply, and i think this version is most logical. there was/is no chance in hell that a 12 year old would ever testify in court against these mofos anyways. like there is no chance in hell anybody would ever testify against them, and i say anybody, and additionally the whole town knew who shot who as it happened in broadview and i am sure the witnesses most definitely count in the dozens, so i think there would be no sense to kill the poor lad, other than he was an innocent bystander killed by a stray bullet. what outrages me the most that the kid was not given a burial but rather was dumped in a domik. shame, bloody shame. the police now are insinuating that the kid may have played with a grenade and was killed. what jerks. it is just beyond me.
Comment by artyom — July 15, 2007 @ 12:13 pm
Hi Artyom, I agree with you that his death was an “accident,” although I personally believe that’s still as bad as premeditated murder hence the title to this post. Talking of the police, incidentally, I’m told by a reliable source that the kid’s fingerprints are nowhere to be found in the house where he supposedly broke into and so I’m told another addition to the story of how he died was that he as supposedly wearing gloves.
Disgusting. Simply disgusting.
Comment by Onnik — July 15, 2007 @ 11:26 pm
by the way the kid is from my neighborhood in gyumri. just half a block from where our domik is.
Comment by artyom — July 16, 2007 @ 7:04 am