Both Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan were at the forefront of our liberation - Artsakh leader critical of criminal cases against ex-presidents

The leader of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) on Tuesday shared his concerns over the criminal cases against the second and third presidents of Armenia, highly appreciating their contribution to the country's national-liberation movement.

"It doesn't logically give us pleasure at all to see Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan in judicial processes - neither me nor the citizens of Artsakh. And I am more than confident that neither does it to the citizens of Armenia, and the Armenian people in general," Bako Sahakyan told reporters in Stepanakert.

"We are speaking of leaders who used to be at the forefront of the national-liberation movement and also initially organized the armed resistance. They later had their participation in army-building and ensuring the well-being of our fatherland. And understandably, their situation today could not but have evoked the not quite ordinary sentiments among our people," he added.  

Addressing the allegations that the masterminds behind the 2008 deadly post-electoral events "have not yet been found", Sahakyan said, "If you have noticed, we have demonstrated that vigilance and restraint over the period, refraining from legal evaluations in our discourse. So any measure, whether my motion or presence in court, or any action that we - or I personally - may possibly initiate, are aimed solely at taking into consideration the reality that we speak of people whose contribution to our people's modern history is impossible to underestimate."

Asked to comment on the Artsakh authorities' repeated promises to never intervene in the domestic political developments in Armenia (as well as the remark that the earlier motion to commute Kocharyan's arrest will not be treated as such an attempt), Sahakyan declined to make any remark.

"I rule out, and feel strongly opposed to, comments of the kind. We are after all speaking about a single fatherland, and hence those developments pertain to the frameworks of that fatherland alone. We live in a single fatherland [divided into] two states, so I do not think this kind of interventions violate the said orders and rules. I think just the other way about, and so I will be guiding myself with the same mentality as before. And I do not think we are thus seeding an extra tension or creating extra difficulties," the president said.