Lawyers for Robert Kocharian said on Monday that they will appeal on Tuesday against a Yerevan district court’s decision to allow law-enforcement authorities to arrest the former Armenian president on coup charges which he denies as politically motivated.
One of them, Aram Orbelian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that they expect Armenia’s Court of Appeals to start considering their petition already this week.
Kocharian was arrested late on Friday one day after being charged with “overthrowing the constitutional order” in the wake of a disputed presidential election held in February 2008 two months before he completed his second and final term. The accusation stems from the use of deadly force on March 1-2, 2008 against opposition supporters demonstrating against alleged vote rigging.
Kocharian angrily rejected the accusations in televised remarks on Thursday. He defended the legality of his decision to declare a state of emergency and order Armenian army units into central Yerevan late on March 1, 2008. He also said that the coup charges ran counter to the decisions of Armenia’s Central Election Commission and the Constitutional Court that validated the official election outcome.
Orbelian and the other defense lawyer, Ruben Sahakian, echoed that denial at a joint news conference with Kocharian’s spokesman, Victor Soghomonian, held on Saturday. They also condemned his pre-trial arrest as illegal, saying that the Special Investigative Service (SIS) did not present any compelling evidence to the lower court.
“This is a [political] order and they are going to execute it,” charged Sahakian.
The lawyers also insisted that Kocharian enjoys immunity from prosecution in line with Article 140 of the Armenian constitution. The article says: “During the term of his or her powers and thereafter, the President of the Republic may not be prosecuted and subjected to liability for actions deriving from his or her status.”
Kocharian’s arrest was condemned as politically motivated by the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) of Serzh Sarkisian, who succeeded him as president following the 2008 election and the ensuing unrest. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), a political party represented in the current Armenian government, also expressed serious concern about it.
By contrast, the arrest was hailed as a triumph of justice by political allies of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, who led the 2008 protest movement, as well as some human rights activists and relatives of protesters killed in the post-election violence. They have for years accused the Sarkisian administration of covering up the killings.