Prosecutor Requests to Detain Robert Kocharyan

The Yerevan City Court has made a decision to change the preventive measure for Robert Kocharyan from detention to a personal guarantee on May 18, allowing for a judicial error that represents procedural violations impacting the outcome of the case, stated prosecutor Petros Petrosyan during the hearing of appeals regarding Kocharyan and others at the Court of Appeals.

According to the prosecutor, although the court did not question the reasonable suspicion regarding Kocharyan's involvement in the actions attributed to him under part 1 of Article 300.1 of the RA Criminal Code based on the factual circumstances of the case, it inexplicably expressed the opinion that there are certain doubts regarding the constitutionality of the act attributed to Kocharyan that should be verified later. "The court's such conclusion does not correspond to the standards of the reasoning of judicial acts, as there has been no argument presented regarding the constitutionality of part 1 of Article 300.1, and furthermore, based on the factual data of the case, the court could no longer raise doubts concerning the constitutionality of that article, since in this way, the court applied Article 300.1 within the scope of the assessment of reasonable suspicion," he said.

Analyzing the reasoning part of the first-instance court's decision in detail, the prosecutor noted that such a preventive measure should not have been selected against Robert Kocharyan. "In the context of high risks of obstructing the administration of justice through hiding from criminal proceedings and exerting illegal influence on those involved in the case, any preventive measure not connected to freedom, including personal guarantee, cannot be considered an effective guarantee regarding the accused Kocharyan," he announced. According to the prosecutor, the judicial act is illegal, unreasoned, and unfounded, and the court has allowed a judicial error, a violation of procedural law that has impacted the outcome of the case.

Thus, the prosecutor requested the court to completely annul the decision of the Yerevan City Court regarding the change of preventive measure to detention against the second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and to issue a new judicial act applying detention as a preventive measure against him.

Prosecutor Karen Bisharyan also requested a complete cancellation of the May 20 decision to suspend the proceedings of Kocharyan and others and send the case to the Constitutional Court, and to issue a new judicial act.