Lawyer again slams Kocharyan’s arrest, charges pressed against him

Hayk Alumyan, one of the lawyers of Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan charged with overthrowing the constitutional order during the March 2008 post-election events, took to Facebook to again decry the ex-president’s recent arrest and the charges brought against him.

“There is much debate on social media about whether second President Robert Kocharyan's arrest was lawful and whether the charges against him were substantiated.

“I won’t present many arguments, I will only state the following: if the charges were at least a bit substantial and there were slight grounds for his arrest, does anyone have doubts that the courts would order Kocharyan’s arrest without the National Security Service’s calling judge Hrach, without the prime minister’s threatening judges at the Republic Square in a live broadcast, without blocking the court buildings and exerting pressure of the kind,” he said.

He also cited judge Armen Danielyan’s ‘desperate’ move to not allow the defense lawyers to present their arguments before ruling on Kocharyan’s case as another fact questioning the lawfulness of his decision.