YEREVAN. – The Prosecutor’s Office, the National Security Service, and the Special Investigative Service of Armenia are engaged in one activity: to collect evidence and grounds that Robert Kocharyan be in custody so that his indictment is substantiated. Attorney Hayk Alumyan, a member of the legal defense team of Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan, stated about this at a press conference on Saturday.
“However, (...) they didn’t succeed in proving Mr. Kocharyan’s indictment and, moreover, the need to keep Mr. Kocharyan in custody,” the lawyer added, in particular. “That’s why they have begun to more and more often resort to impermissible methods; they are compelled to more and more often apply power methods.
“Losing in the legal arena, they, along with the Prime Minister of the republic, had to launch that unprecedented action: to close all the courts of Armenia, intimidating the judges.”
In Alumyan’s words, before that, the incumbent Armenian authorities were forced to put pressure on judges in a separate way.
“If everything were lawful, or were to contain some element of lawfulness, would they have been forced to exact revenge—with these methods—upon Judge Davit Grigoryan?” the attorney asked. “By applying all this against the judges, don’t they send a message to the other judges who will be examining Mr. Kocharyan’s case in the future?”
On March 1 and 2, 2008 the then authorities of Armenia used force against the opposition members who were rallying in downtown capital city Yerevan, and against the results of the presidential election on February 19, 2008. Eight demonstrators as well as two servicemen of the internal troops were killed in the clashes.
Second President Robert Kocharyan is charged with overthrowing the constitutional order in Armenia in connection with the aforesaid events, and taking a particularly large bribe.
The Criminal Court of Appeal recently overturned the first instance court’s earlier decision on releasing Kocharyan from custody, and it ruled that he be remanded in custody yet again.
