The Custodial Death of Levon Gulyan and the ECHR Judgment

Status boundary: the European Court found Armenia responsible for failing to explain a death in custody and for an ineffective investigation. It did not convict any police officer of homicide or decide exactly how Levon Gulyan left the window.

A witness, not a suspect

Levon Gulyan owned a restaurant in Yerevan's Shengavit district. On the night of May 9, 2007, a man was fatally shot after a confrontation near the restaurant. Police took Gulyan and employees for questioning. The European Court record describes Gulyan as a witness; he told prosecutors that he had tried to calm an argument but had not seen or heard the shooting itself.

Over the next two days he spent extended periods at law-enforcement premises. Whether he was free to leave and whether his detention had a lawful basis later became part of the unresolved record. On May 12 he was taken to the Police Directorate for Combating Organized Crime for further questioning.

The fall from the window

Gulyan died that afternoon in the courtyard below an office window. Police officers said he had tried to escape while an officer briefly left the room. The family rejected that explanation and alleged that he had been ill-treated. Human-rights organizations immediately called for an independent investigation.

Forensic examinations documented fatal injuries consistent with a fall and also recorded smaller injuries sustained while he was alive. The central question was not only the mechanics of the fall but what happened inside the office immediately before it.

Evidence that was not resolved

Domestic courts repeatedly identified deficiencies. Investigators did not establish whose palm and fingerprints were on the window, did not adequately trace fibres found on Gulyan's clothing and under his fingernails, and did not explain why his shoelaces were in his trouser pockets. They did not fully investigate the smaller injuries or conduct the ordered reconstruction of the fall.

Witness accounts by officers contained discrepancies. The family was not effectively involved in key procedural steps, and investigative decisions repeatedly accepted the escape theory before obvious contradictions had been resolved. Those findings do not prove a particular alternative scenario, but they prevent the official version from being treated as established fact.

Repeated closures and reopenings

Armenian investigators opened a criminal case under the provision on causing a person to commit suicide. The proceeding was closed and reopened several times after courts found that necessary investigative steps had not been taken. In 2010 the Court of Cassation ordered authorities to remedy rights violations in the investigation.

Despite those orders, the European Court later found that serious steps had not followed. The proceeding was closed again in February 2012. No final individual criminal conviction established responsibility for Gulyan's death.

Gulyan v. Armenia

Gulyan's father, Ashot Gulyan, applied to the European Court of Human Rights. In a judgment delivered on September 20, 2018, the Court found a procedural violation of Article 2 because the investigation had not taken all necessary measures or effectively involved the family.

The Court also found a substantive Article 2 violation. Because the investigation was so inadequate, the true facts could not be established; Armenia had not provided the satisfactory and convincing explanation required for a death occurring while a person was under state control. The Court awarded €50,000 in non-pecuniary damages and €2,000 for costs and expenses.

What the judgment does—and does not—establish

The judgment is a final international finding against Armenia. It establishes that the state failed in both its duty to account for the custodial death and its duty to investigate it effectively. It does not transform the family's allegation into a criminal verdict against a named officer.

That distinction is essential to a trustworthy status label. Gulyan's death remains unresolved at the individual criminal level, while Armenia's responsibility under the European Convention is adjudicated.

Why the case matters

A death in custody places a special evidentiary burden on the state because the decisive events occur inside institutions the public cannot observe. Missing scene evidence and repeated premature closures make later reconstruction more difficult, not less necessary.

The case therefore belongs in the archive as an unresolved custodial death with a bounded human-rights judgment: a victim who entered as a witness, a disputed explanation, uncompleted investigative work and no individual criminal conviction.