YEREVAN (RFE/RL)—Armenia’s Court of Appeals on Wednesday increased the prison sentence that was given to a former school teacher convicted of sexually and physically abusing female students, from two to three years.
Levon Avagian, 59, was found guilty by a Yerevan district court in May of committing “violent obscene acts” at a boarding school in the city’s Nubarashen suburb, where he worked until last year. Avagian protested his innocence at the start of his trial in April but subsequently pleaded guilty to the accusation.
The lower court’s two-year prison sentence was based on incriminating testimony given by Diana Amirkhanian and Hasmik Sinanian, former school students who claim to have been victims of the alleged abuse. They both found the sentence too mild and asked the Court of Appeals to toughen it.
Amirkhanian withdrew the appeal for unclear reasons when the court opened hearings on it last month. Sinanian and her lawyers suspect that she did so under pressure from law-enforcement authorities.
They demanded during the hearings that Avagian be sentenced five years in prison, the maximum sentence for his alleged crime envisaged by the Armenian Criminal Code. One of the lawyers, Tigran Hayrapetian, said her client is only “partly satisfied” with the appeals court ruling.
“Justice will be fully done, if he gets a strict punishment,” Hayrapetian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “In our view, a three-year sentence is not a strict punishment.”
“I think people like him must be jailed for life,” Sinanian told the court on Tuesday.
One of the judges responded by asking, “Do you have a father?” “No,” she replied.
Speaking to RFE/RL after the court session, Sinanian said she left the Nubarashen school in 2007 because of Avagian’s abusive behavior. “He was a very strict teacher,” she said. “And of course, there were terrible beatings and sexual harassment.”
The sex abuse scandal, the most high-profile case in Armenia’s history, was triggered by a group of young civic activists who worked as volunteers at the school from April to June 2008. They said afterwards that some schoolgirls alleged abuse at the hands of Avagian.
One of the activists, Mariam Sukhudian, videotaped Amirkhanian and alerted Armenian media about her claims. Sukhudian was charged last summer with “false denunciation” and faced up to five years in prison.
But a mounting public uproar led state prosecutors to order the Yerevan police to drop the extremely controversial charge and prosecute Avagian instead. The latter’s imprisonment was followed by the discharge of the school principal, Meruzhan Yengibarian.
Since when is a wistleblower condemened to five years (fotunately common sense prevailed) and a pedo gets only three years even though there is overwhelming evidence of this sub-human’s crime followed by his own confession. I hope that before his three years are up, he roots in prison. Animals like that give our noble nation a bad name. Punishment should fit the crime and he has commited the highest crime possible against vulnerable children. Shame. He should hang his head forever in shame!