Robert Kocharyan 'will be taken into custody', lawyer says after appellate hearing

The Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s decision on taking Robert Kocharyan under arrest, a lawyer for the second president said today, announcing the judgement published after five-day hearings.

“Our complaints were turned down to leave the first instance court’s ruling in effect. So the court opted for arrest as a precautionary measure,” Hayk Alumhyan told reporters.

He added that the defense team will issue detailed comments later today.

Kocharyan, whose second term of presidency expired in 2008, faces criminal charges for overthrowing Armenia’s constitutional order in the period of the 2008 post-electoral unrest (disputing the legitimacy of the nationwide polls that swept Serzh Sargsyan into the presidential office as Kocharyan’s successor).  Ten people, including eight civilians and two policemen, were killed in the wake of the violent turmoil after Kocharyan, already the outgoing president, declared a state of emergency to disperse the crowd from the protest site (after days of peaceful rallies).

The Special Investigative Service had earlier replaced the measure of restraint against the former president with a written undertaking not to leave the country.

Ruben Sahakyan, another attorney representing Kocharyan in the criminal case, described today’s ruling as unprecedented, insisting on his constitutional immunity which he said “would have been the least between two evils” (if considered and approved by the Constitutional Court).

Sahakyan added that the second president did not personally attend the hearing today. “But Kocharyan is highly unlikely to avoid [prosecution], and he never will,” he said, downplaying earlier allegations voiced by the head of an investigative group.

A prosecutor in the case, Vahagn Muradyan, denied any pressure upon the court, saying that all their actions over the period were “strictly in line with the effective laws”.

A district court in Yerevan passed the ruling to take Kocharyan into custody on June 27. His attorneys later filed a case with the Court of Appeals. The complaint was satisfied on August 13 on the grounds of the presidential immunity clause.

That ruling too, was later appealed - by both Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan and the team of attorneys. On  November 15, the Court of Cassation decided to partially satisfy the public prosecutor’s complaint and submit the case to the Court of Appeals for further considerations.