Today’s decision of the appeal court simply proved the fact that Robert Kocharyan is just a political prisoner and is being subjected to political persecution by the new authorities. This is what Head of the Office of the second President of the Republic of Armenia Victor Soghomonyan said in an interview with Fifth Channel.

“Today’s decision of the appeal court simply proved the fact that Robert Kocharyan is just a political prisoner and is being subjected to political persecution by the new authorities. You can see that the court is extending the period of remand without having any ground to keep President Kocharyan under custody. There is no law or logic. I am certain that the judges know very well that the remand is unlawful. However, they render the same decisions, except for one judge,” he said.

He said talks about the possibility that Robert Kocharyan will hide from the investigation in this stage are embarrassing and highlighted the fact that if he did hide, he wouldn’t have returned to Armenia on time.

According to Soghomonyan, “this is a real political vendetta and an attempt to isolate the main opponent from politics and simply remand him, taking revenge for some problems of the past”.

Soghomonyan viewed this as a short-sighted policy for two reasons. “Firstly, it is impossible to do this for a long time. Secondly, I regret to say that the authorities are entangling law-enforcement and judicial authorities in these illegal acts, forcing them to take part in the illegal actions and political persecutions. I have no doubt that we will get out of this situation and continue our struggle by all means not proscribed by law in the legal and political fields and at other levels,” Soghomonyan said.