The incompetent planning of a police operation that leads to the death of the defendant is unacceptable.
JUDGMENT
Ayvazyan v. Armenia 01-06-2017 (no. 56717/08)
SUMMARY
Police operation against a dangerous offender. Death by police fire. Police violence. Violation of the procedural aspect of Article 2 of the ECHR due to elliptical and uneffective investigation of death and the design and control of the police operation.
PROVISION
Article 2
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicant, Silvar Ayvazyan, is a Russian national who was born in 1951 and lives in Rostov-on-Don (Russia). The case concerned the killing of her mentally-ill brother, Seyran Ayvazyan, born in 1961, by the police.
On 6 March 2006 Seyran Ayvazyan went to a local shop and stabbed a shop assistant and a customer. The police were called and went to Seyran Ayvazyan’s home where he had, in the meantime, fled. One of four police officers who arrived at his home was also then stabbed. More police officers were called, as well as the local mayor, an ambulance and the fire brigade. The house being surrounded, the police tried to persuade him to surrender, without success. After about five hours, they decided to enter the house to apprehend him, but when he attacked another officer with a knife, they opened fire and shot him dead.
Criminal proceedings were immediately instituted after the shooting to investigate Seyran Ayvazyan’s armed assaults. An inspection of the crime scene and an autopsy were conducted, and police officers involved in the incident were questioned. However, in October 2006 the prosecuting authorities decided to discontinue the criminal case given that Seyran Ayvazyan had died. At the same time the authorities refused to open criminal proceedings against the police officers involved in the incident, concluding that they had acted lawfully in the face of a life-threatening attack. One of Seyran Ayvazyan’s sisters lodged a complaint about this decision, submitting in particular that no separate criminal proceedings had been brought into the killing. The complaint was dismissed at both first and second instance. Her appeal on points of law was also finally dismissed in May 2008 by the Court of Cassation because it had been lodged out of time. The Court of Cassation did nevertheless point out a number of shortcomings in the investigation into the killing, namely that not all the police officers present at the shooting had been questioned, that no measures had been taken to prevent collusion between those officers who had been questioned and that no reasonable explanation had been given for the fact that six of the ten bullets fired at Seyran Ayvazyan had hit him in the back.
Relying on Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights, Silvar Ayvazyan alleged that the use of force against her brother had been unnecessary, the number of shots fired at him excluding the justification of self-defence, and that the police officers involved had been ill-prepared and ill-equipped for the situation. She further submitted under Article 2 that the authorities’ investigation had been inadequate.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT
No violation of Article 2 – as regards the actions of the police officers Violation of Article 2 – as regards the planning and control of the police operation
Violation of Article 2 (investigation)
Just satisfaction: 15,000 euros (EUR) (non-pecuniary damage)
