YEREVAN. – You have a biased negative attitude towards Robert Kocharyan, and you don’t miss any opportunity to abuse to his detriment the power vested in you. Hayk Alumyan, one of the attorneys of Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan, on Monday stated this at Monday’s capital city Yerevan first-instance court hearing on the criminal case involving Kocharyan and several other former senior officials, as he filed a motion with the court for the recusal of presiding Judge Anna Danibekyan.
The second President’s attorneys had announced their intention to file a motion for the recusal of Judge Danibekyan at the previous court hearing, when she had denied their motion to release Kocharyan on bail, or on a signature bond.
Alumyan presented two grounds for this recusal. “First, you can’t be considered a proper court to hear this case,” he said. “And second, you have a biased negative attitude towards Mr. Kocharyan.”
Alumyan cited sections from the indictment on Kocharyan’s declaring state of emergency in March 2008, noting that this indictment says then President Kocharyan’s respective decree was unlawful and unconstitutional. He noted, however, that the matter of determining the constitutionality of the Armenian presidents’ decrees is up to the Constitutional Court and the National Assembly, not to the court of first instance.
As second grounds, Alumyan noted that the redistribution of this criminal case was done in a non-transparent, clandestine manner, and stressed that the respective court’s composition was arbitrarily formed.
Also, the attorney stated that prior to setting a date for the court hearing of this case, the defense had filed several motions regarding Kocharyan’s pretrial measure, but Judge Danibekyan had not considered them, nor had she made a decision to leave them without consideration, or deferring the settlement.
He added that the decision to not commute Kocharyan’s pretrial measure of custody was made by the court without including Kocharyan and his lawyers into the respective discussion.
“In view of the above, I motion to file a recusal,” Hayk Alumyan concluded.
The court left for the consultation room to make a decision on this motion.
The verdict is expected to be announced at 4:45pm.
Judge Anna Danibekyan had ruled against releasing Robert Kocharyan on the basis of the September 4 decision by the Constitutional Court, and then had denied his defendants’ motion to release him on bail.
