YEREVAN. – The Constitutional Court has said its word in connection with the constitutionality of that article, and I believe that the [first-instance] court should say its word today and should dismiss [the case] against everyone, because of lack of corpus delicti. Armenia’s former minister of defense Seyran Ohanyan told this to reporters at the court yard Tuesday.
The trial of the criminal case against second President Robert Kocharyan, former CSTO Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov, former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, and former Deputy PM Armen Gevorgyan is to resume today at the court of general jurisdiction of Yerevan.
"The decision of the Constitutional Court is the right decision. In any case, that decision proves once again that there was political persecution against us, also under this article. I had said at the time that I don’t understand the essence of the charge against me," Ohanyan added.
As reported earlier, on March 26, the Constitutional Court declared Article 300.1 (overthrow of the constitutional order) of the Criminal Code in conflict with Articles 78 (principle of proportionality) and 79 (principle of certainty) of the Constitution, and therefore invalidated it. It is not clear what kind of “overthrow” is in question, given that the aforesaid article was adopted under one constitution, and they had tried to amend it under another constitution.
The defendants—second President Robert Kocharyan, former CSTO Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov, former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, and former Deputy PM Armen Gevorgyan—are charged under this article of the Criminal Code.
