YEREVAN. –Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan, several other former senior officials, and their attorneys remained standing for several minutes at the beginning of Monday’s court hearing on the criminal case involving Kocharyan and the defendants, and expressed their protest against the actions of presiding Judge Anna Danibekyan.

Hovhannes Khudoyan, one of Kocharyan’s legal defenders, referred to Narek Mutafyan and his companion Sargis Ohanjanyan’s arrest along the lines of the criminal case into pursuing Judge Danibekyan, and made a respective statement.

The attorney said that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had recently made a statement about which Mutafyan had asked the aforesaid judge, and as a result, he and Ohanjanyan had been arrested.

“Those events were preceded by the well-known incidents,” Khudoyan added. “The actions of the persons involved in these incidents haven’t been given a proper criminal legal assessment, whereas two people have been arrested based on your [crime] report, in connection with the questions asked to you; that is, we see a clear discriminatory conduct. And based on the 2012 Resolution 1900 of PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe), they are political prisoners.

“Senior officials [of Armenia] are being politically persecuted in this case you are presiding over, [and] two young people are being prosecuted based on the [crime] report you submitted. We urge [you] to from now on be consistent, to administer justice so as not to promote political persecution.”

Subsequently, Robert Kocharyan’s supporters in the courtroom began to applaud, and held Mutafyan’s and Ohanjanyan’s photos in their hands.

In the evening of September 27, Judge Anna Danibekyan—who is presiding over the criminal case involving second President Robert Kocharyan and several other former senior officials into the tragic events that occurred in Yerevan in March 2008—was walking toward the court when two young men, including Narek Mutafyan, approached her.

Mutafyan was a participant in the pro-Kocharyan demonstrations outside the court.

Mutafyan went on Facebook livestream, started asking the judge questions about the aforesaid criminal case, and, also, repeatedly asked her whether she was one of those “whimpering judges” who await instructions—as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had stated.

After this incident, a crime report was submitted and a criminal case was filed in which Narek Mutafyan and Sargis Ohanjanyan were indicted.

They are accused of interfering with the activities of the court in order to obstruct the administration of justice.

By a court decision, they have been remanded in custody.