The motion for the preventive measure of Armenia’s second president, Robert Kocharyan, has been heard in court and the decision will be announced at 5:30pm. The second president’s defense attorney, Aram Orbelyan, after leaving the court, told reporters as follows:

“The case took a long time, because there are quite a few long questions related to the motion, which also included the accusation. There were arguments there about the alleged strengthening of reasonable suspicion, as well as our claim in full denial in connection with the grounds for [Kocharyan’s ongoing pretrial] detention.

We have submitted quite a lot of material that directly refuted the need for detention. The process was quite interactive, the court had questions, the parties had questions for each other; there were speeches.

Against the background of all this information, the preventive measure of [pretrial] detention should not be applied. But now let's look at the remaining circumstances. The process has been clearly presented; the structure of the conclusions has been clearly presented, that if we initially assume that the person is guilty, then we try to build everything else under it, we can come to this conclusion.

But if we try to look at the materials objectively and evaluate them objectively, in the whole context we realize that the theory put forward by the accusation does not withstand criticism at all. Besides that, there are a number of allegations that are themselves unconstitutional in nature.

That is, giving a criminal procedural assessment to government decisions ratified by the president, which are in force until they are overturned by the court, some alleged interpretations, with the logic of ‘we interpret [it] this way,’ is unconstitutional.”