Chairman of Armenia’s Investigation Committee receives CE human rights official

Chairman of Armenia’s Investigation Committee Aghvan Hovsepyan received on Tuesday Mr Christos Giakoumopoulos, Director of Human Rights in the Council of Europe's Directorate General Human Rights.

Mr Hovsepyan informed Mr Giakoumopoulos of the principles underlying the Investigation Committee’s work and priorities, measures to ensure human rights protection in criminal investigations in charge of the Investigation Committee.

Since it was formed two years ago, the Investigation Committee has succeeded in improving the effectiveness and quality of investigation, introducing digitization and electronic preliminary investigation programs. Moreover, investigative agencies of some of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) members and European states do not operate such programs.

On his part, Mr Giakoumopoulos commended the Investigation Committee’s initiative to apply information technologies in preliminary investigation and the results. The CE Directorate General Human Rights is ready to provide additional components to the electronic preliminary investigation program to facilitate application of international human rights protection standards in Armenia.

Mr Giakoumopoulos introduced a new program of human rights protection criteria for Armenia’s armed forces for the coming two years. The program envisages involvement of the Military Investigation Department of Armenia’s Investigation Committee.

The sides reached an agreement to continue cooperation under the previously launched programs and hold consultations on new areas of cooperation.