An act that the prosecutors in the “Case of the Seven” refused couldn’t be incriminated to second President of the Republic of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and the others. This is what Hayk Alumyan, one of the attorneys of Robert Kocharyan, said during an April 12 press conference.
According to him, prosecutors refused charge of overthrow of constitutional order in the “Case of the Seven”, stating that the article on overthrow of constitutional order increases liability.
“As of 2009, seven prominent members of the political opposition, including Alexander Arzumanyan, Myasnik Malkhasyan, Suren Sirunyan, Shant Harutyunyan and others, were charged under Article 300, that is, overthrow of constitutional order. In 2009, the corpus delicti for overthrow of constitutional order was removed from Article 300 and became Article 300.1, and 6 prosecutors refused the charge brought up against the 7, explaining that Article 300.1, which entered into force in 2009 and is now being ascribed to Robert Kocharyan, is a norm increasing liability compared to the norm that existed in 2008. Those 7 weren’t held liable under the charge of overthrow of constitutional order based on this explanation, and now we’re simply demanding that the same standard be applied to Robert Kocharyan,” he said.
According to him, today, prosecutors are doing the opposite by incriminating Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code to Robert Kocharyan.
“This is absurd in terms of law. It is the culmination of violation of human rights and can’t go on for a long time. Judges are stuck in the middle — they either have to violate the law and go down in history as judges depriving Armenia’s second President of liberty illegally, or enforce the law, but find themselves behind bars. This has to end,” the attorney said.
As far as the attorneys’ future actions are concerned, Alumyan said the following:
“We’re ready to take unexpected steps and have an influence, but we simply don’t want to reach that point. There are already 5 complaints sent to the European Court of Human Rights, and we’re working on the sixth one.”
On 11 April, the Criminal Court of Appeal of Armenia ruled to reject the attorneys’ appeal against extension of the period of remand of second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan for another two months.
