Kocharian, his former chief of staff Armen Gevorgian and two retired army generals were prosecuted in connection with a 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan. A district court cleared them of the “overthrow of the constitutional order” in April 2021 ten days after the Constitutional Court ruled that their indictment under a relevant article of the Criminal Code breached the Armenian constitution.
Prosecutors appealed against the acquittal, saying that they must be allowed to charge the defendants with abuse of power also related to the events of March 2008. The Court of Appeals upheld the acquittal, leading the prosecutors to take their case to the higher Court of Cassation. The latter in turn appealed to the Constitutional Court in March this year.
Armenia - A man walks past burned cars on a street in Yerevan where security forces clashed with opposition protesters, 2 March 2008.
The Constitutional Court ruled in July that Armenia’s Code of Procedural Justice allows the prosecutors to bring a different accusation stemming from the use of force against antigovernment protesters who clashed with security forces in Yerevan in March 2008. Eight protesters and two police personnel were killed in those clashes.
Citing that ruling, the Court of Cassation ordered a court of first instance to start a new trial on the high-profile case. Kocharian’s lawyers did not immediately react to the decision made on Thursday and publicized on Friday. One of the lawyers, Hayk Alumian, earlier accused the Constitutional Court of enabling the Armenian authorities to resume Kocharian’s “political persecution.”
Kocharian, who now leads Armenia’s main opposition alliance, was also charged with bribery before the start of his first trial in 2019. He strongly denied that accusation as well. The 70-year-old ex-president as well as Gevorgian continued to stand trial for the alleged bribery after the presiding judge, Anna Danibekian, threw out the coup case in April 2021.
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian speaks at an election campaign rally held by his Hayastan alliance in Kapan, administrative center of Syunik province, June 7, 2021.
The trial ended without a verdict in December 2023, with Kocharian invoking the statute of limitations that expired in May 2023. For the same reason, he will not go to jail if he is convicted in connection with the 2008 crackdown.
The Constitutional Court paved the way for Kocharian’s new trial one week after Danibekian was removed from the bench because of her handling of the high-profile trial. Armenia’s judicial oversight body led by a political ally of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian ousted the judge at the request of the Ministry of Justice.
Kocharian, who is highly critical of Armenia’s current government, was first arrested in July 2018 shortly after the “velvet revolution” that brought Pashinian to power. He was set free on bail in June 2020.
Pashinian was the main speaker at the 2008 protests marred by the deadly violence. He spent nearly two years in prison for his role in what the former Armenian authorities described as a plot to violently overthrow them.