The decision to extend the pretrial detention of Armenia's second president, Robert Kocharyan, has been appealed to the Court of Appeals, his attorney, Aram Orbelyan, announced at a press conference on Wednesday.

According to Orbelyan, the defense requested that the motion to extend Kocharyan’s pretrial detention be considered in an open session, but the court denied that request, citing an ongoing investigation.

The attorney noted that in most of the cases, the court did not register reasonable suspicion, and in several cases it found that the defense did not present a rebuttal.

Orbelyan stressed that the presumption of innocence does not work that way: the burden of proving guilt lies with the prosecution, not the defense.

Regarding the effectiveness of the work of the investigative team, Orbelyan informed that the team includes more than 60 investigators, 41 of whom participated in investigations. In total, 95 actions were carried out, and the investigator who carried out the most actions carried out 11 of them.

“There were actions that lasted three minutes. From the description, it is clear that it’s about the use of detention as a punishment for political reasons,” the lawyer noted.

He added that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) had recorded that the June 7 parliamentary elections in Armenia were accompanied by persecution and the active use of criminal punishment. According to Orbelyan, Robert Kocharyan’s pretrial detention is directly related to the electoral processes in Armenia.

The lawyer stated that the defense expects the Court of Appeals to examine the appeal in a short time and overturn the decision of the court of first instance.