Armenian Court Upholds Arrest Of Ex-President Kocharyan

The Armenian court of general jurisdiction has ruled to keep the country's second president, Robert Kocharyan, who was charged with overthrowing the constitutional order during the 2008 protests, under arrest, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the Armenian capital city of Yerevan on Tuesday

YEREVAN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th September, 2019) The Armenian court of general jurisdiction has ruled to keep the country's second president, Robert Kocharyan, who was charged with overthrowing the constitutional order during the 2008 protests, under arrest, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the Armenian capital city of Yerevan on Tuesday.

Kocharyan's legal team filed a petition to immediately release him on September 7, three days after the Armenian Constitutional Court ruled that his arrest was partially unconstitutional, namely because it did not consider the notion of the immunity of officials under special protection.

"The court has decided to reject the petition of Kocharyan's attorney to change the measure of restraint," Judge Anna Danibekyan said.

The decision on the petition to release Kocharyan on bail will be announced on September 20, she added.

Kocharyan, who served as president from 1998 to 2008, was charged with attempts to overthrow Armenia's constitutional order by suppressing opposition protests on March 1-2, 2008.

The rallies led to clashes with the police and army in which ten people were killed and around 200 were injured. Kocharyan has been in pre-trial custody since December.

In May, after top leaders of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic vouched for Kocharyan to not flee future trials, a court in Yerevan ruled to release him and suspend criminal proceedings. The judges also decided to direct the case to the Constitutional Court for it to determine whether the detainee must be tried as a state official or private citizen. Later in June, the Court of Appeals annulled this ruling and placed him under arrest again.

Kocharyan repeatedly denounced the charges against him as fabricated and politically motivated.