Kocharyan’s attorney: Final court ruling important, not prosecutor general’s opinion

Panorama, Armenia
Nov 28 2018

The important thing is whether the court will or will not consider the submitted arguments reasonable, not the opinion of Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan or the investigator, second President Robert Kocharyan’s attorney Aram Orbelyan told a briefing on Wednesday.

Earlier today, Davtyan stressed the need to remand the ex-president into custody at the current stage of investigation into the March 1 case.

The attorney expressed hope that the prosecutor general sees real grounds for Kocharyan’s pre-trial detention. 

“The case hasn’t been discussed in essence yesterday. I hope that the prosecutor general sees any grounds. If it turns out that there are no grounds, but he still insists on the motion, I will see issues here,” Orbelyan said.

According to the lawyer, new arguments cannot be submitted to the Court of Appeals, since it is set to check the legitimacy of the First Instance Court ruling. There is also the position expressed by the Court of Cassation, within the framework of which the case must be examined, he said.

Orbelyan also said the prosecutor general or his deputy should have attended the hearings on Kocharyan’s case from the very beginning. 

“It is very strange that they have joined the hearings now, since this is obviously a complicated case,” he said, meantime stressing they do not oppose the presence of a top official from the prosecutor general’s office during the hearings.

Kocharyan has been charged with overthrowing Armenia’s constitutional order during the March 1-2, 2008 post-election events in Armenia. He denies the charges as ‘politically motivated’.