The defense submitted a motion to the Avan district court of the Yerevan court of general jurisdiction to have Dr. Armen Charchyan—Izmirlian Medical Center director, and a member of the opposition "Armenia" bloc, led by second President Robert Kocharyan—released on bail.

"At this phase of the trial, there are all the prerequisites to commute the most severe pretrial measure of arrest enforced against Charchyan with a milder pretrial measure of releasing on bail," said one of his lawyers, Erik Aleksanyan.

 According to him, all the witnesses in this criminal case have testified in favor of Charchyan.

Defense attorney Aram Vardevanyan, for his part, emphasized that although they believe that there is no need to enforce any pretrial measure against Armen Charchyan, they consider the use of bail acceptable, leaving the amount of bail to the court's discretion.

The prosecution, however, objected to the motion, arguing that Charchyan should remain in custody. "There are grounds to remain in custody, and their risk is high," it argued.

Armen Charchyan has been charged under Article 154.2 of the Criminal Code—that is, giving bribes to voters, taking bribes, violating the ban on charity during elections, or obstructing the exercise of a voter's free will.

A recording was disseminated on the Internet, according to which Armen Charchyan was urging his employees at Izmirlian Medical Center to go and vote in the snap parliamentary elections on June 20. But according to his legal defense team, the edited version of that recording was submitted to the court, whereas in the full version, Charchyan had not threatened or put pressure on his employees.