YEREVAN. – The hearing of the lawsuit by former First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Tiran Khachatryan, against President Armen Sarkissian got underway Thursday at the Administrative Court of Armenia.

Khachatryan has petitioned to the court with a request to invalidate President Sarkissian's decree on his dismissal from the aforesaid capacity.

The Prime Minister's Office and the General Staff of the Armed Forces are involved as a third party in this case.

President Armen Sargsyan had dismissed Tiran Khachatryan from the post of First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces by a decree on February 24, and based on then Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's proposal.

Khachatryan was fired for laughing for a long time in connection with Pashinyan's statement about the 10% explosion of the Russian-made Iskander missile during the recent Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war.