On 9 April, the Criminal Court of Appeal of Armenia, under the chairmanship of Judge Ruzanna Barseghyan, continues to examine the appeal filed by the attorneys of second President of the Republic of Armenia Robert Kocharyan against the decision of the Court of First Instance to extend the preventive measure period of remand against Robert Kocharyan for another two months.

On 15 February, examining the motion of the Special Investigation Service to extend the period of remand of Kocharyan, Judge Armen Bektashyan of the Court of First Instance rendered a decision on remanding him and stated that there is no substantiated doubt in the part of bribe ascribed to him. In addition, the Court also found that there is no risk of Kocharyan hiding.

Kocharyan’s attorneys and prosecutors appealed this decision.

Kocharyan is charged under part 1 of Article 300.1 and point 2 of part 4 of Article 311 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia (overthrow of constitutional order of the Republic of Armenia and receiving a bribe in particularly large amounts).

On 15 February, the Special Investigation Service announced about the end of the preliminary investigation of the criminal case under examination and related to the events that took place in the city of Yerevan in the period between 1 and 2 March 2008.