Former President Robert Kocharian on Thursday rejected as baseless and politically motivated coup charges levelled against him by an Armenian law-enforcement body investigating the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.
“This is an absolutely fabricated accusation,” Kocharian told the Yerkir Media TV channel in an interview.
“This is clear political persecution, a vendetta by the ‘velvet revolution,”’ he said, adding that Armenia’s new government wants to “neutralize” him ahead of parliamentary elections expected in the coming months.
The Special Investigative Service (SIS) charged Kocharian with “overthrowing constitutional order” in the wake of a February 2008 presidential election official results of which gave victory to his preferred successor, Serzh Sarkisian. The main opposition presidential candidate, Levon Ter-Petrosian, rejected those results as fraudulent and held nonstop demonstrations in the Armenian capital, demanding a rerun of the disputed ballot.
Security forces broke up those protests on March 1-2, 2008. Eight protesters and two police servicemen died as a result.
Kocharian said that the coup charges brought against him ran counter to the decisions of Armenia’s Central Election Commission and the Constitutional Court that validated the official election outcome. He insisted that Ter-Petrosian garnered only 21.5 percent of the vote.
“As incumbent head of state, I was the carrier and guarantor of constitutional order. Did I overthrow myself in some strange way?” he said.
The SIS announced its decision to prosecute the ex-president and ask a Yerevan court to allow his arrest just hours after interrogating him in connection with the March 2008 unrest. It had summoned him to testify as a witness in the case.
Kocharian said SIS investigators told him right at the beginning of the interrogation that they now consider him a criminal suspect. “As soon as they changed my status I decided not to give testimony because when I read that indictment I was stunned,” he said.
The ex-president also made clear that he will not try to flee the country to avoid arrest. “I will go to jail and will fight till the end,” he said. “Where would I flee?”