Izvestia: Moscow's hospital No.20 assures that Hrachya Harutyunyan was wearing a housecoat because he had no other clothes

 The criminal case on the tragic road accident in "new Moscow" that killed 18 passengers is unfolding an international scandal, Izvestia.ru says.

Armenian Ombudsman Karen Andreasyan is indignant at the fact that the KamAZ driver Hrachya Harutyunyan was brought to the court sessions in a housecoat. The Ombudsman has asked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Lukin to tackle this issue. The representatives of the Russian Health Ministry, Interior Ministry and Federal Penitentiary Service say that at the current stage of investigation it is the business of Harutyunyan's relatives, lawyers, as well as diplomats to solve the problem of his clothes.       

Harutyunyan received minor injuries during the accident and was taken to Moscow's hospital No.20. To all appearances, after the accident his clothes were unfit for use and he put on a hospital gown. However, the representatives of the Health Department of Moscow deny this version.    

"When patients are hospitalized and their clothes are lost or when they are hospitalized naked, it is their relatives that give them clothes. When foreign citizens are hospitalized, even in a mentally disturbed condition, it is their relatives, friends, colleagues, consuls, ambassadors, authorized persons that care for their fate", Elina Nikolayeva, official representative of the Health Department says to Izvestia. 

She says that in this case the patient was in a special unit of the hospital, and there was authorized entry only. "I asked the chief doctor if the hospital had received any requests from consuls or the patient's relatives and friends to bring him some clothes. The chief doctor received no such requests. No one wondered how Haroutyunyan would look and what he would be wearing before he appeared before the court in that housecoat", Nikolayeva says.  

 
The hospital itself says to Izvestia that it was not "their" housecoat Harutyunyan was wearing. "It was not a hospital gown, it was a housecoat left by one of the patients". The Police of Moscow also state that it is the relatives of Harutyunyan that should care for his clothes. "Since his clothes were unfit for use, the investigator informed the lawyer, embassy and the patient's relatives of that", they say to Izvestia.  Izvestia's sources in the Police of Moscow do not even rule out that Harutyunyan was not given new clothes intentionally to stir to pity in the court.

The lawyer of the KamAZ driver states that he had no idea that the defendant needed new clothes. "I have not been informed of the need to bring clothes to the defendant. It is provocation", lawyer Erik Chabanov says to Izvestia. 

The staff of Russian Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin has not yet received any complaints or requests from Armenia. 
To note, on July 13 Harutyunyan's Kamaz drove into a bus with 64 passengers.  18 people were killed.