Appeal against Armenian archbishop's detention to be heard by court chairman

An appeal against the detention of Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan will be heared by the president of Armenia’s Criminal Court of Appeals, Vache Margaryan, according to the cleric’s lawyer.

In a statement on Thursday, attorney Arsen Babayan said the appeal challenging the pre-trial detention order had been formally accepted and assigned to the court chairman.

However, Babayan said he expected the appeal to be rejected and the archbishop to remain in custody.

“I am confident the complaint will be dismissed and the archbishop will remain in detention,” he said. “This will happen even though the prosecutor’s own decision to initiate criminal proceedings effectively refutes the existence of a crime.”

Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan has been detained for two months. The senior cleric is accused of having one of his aides plant drugs in the backpack of a protester who demanded Catholicos Karekin II’s resignation in 2018.  

The archbishop denies the charges as politically motivated.