YEREVAN, July 30. /ARKA/. The faction of the Republican Party of Armenia reacted angrily to the detention of former Armenian president Robert Kocharyan.
The party members think that this process ‘has nothing in common with democracy, legality and independence of the justice system’.
In their opinion, the criminal case strikes hard at political things inside Armenia and ‘such unjustified accusations lay grounds for political split in the country’, which are especially dangerous ‘amid challenges around Armenia and Artsakh’.
They also think that the trouble caused to Kocharyan may tarnish Armenia’s reputation in international and judicial organizations.
A Yerevan district court late on July 27 ruled that the Special Investigative Service (SIS) could hold Kocharyan for two months in pre-trial detention pending investigation. The case dates back to late February and early March 2008 following the disputed presidential election, when then prime minister Serzh Sargsyan was declared the winner, angering the opposition, led by the first Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosyan and setting off 10 days of nonstop protests that led to a crackdown on March 1, in which 10 people were killed and more than 200 injured.
Kocharyan is now charged with toppling constitutional order in collusion with other persons, and the agency has applied to court for a detention warrant.
The same charge was brought against Yuri Khachaturov, secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, who had been the chief of the Yerevan garrison at the time of the bloody events of 2008.
However, Khachaturov was released on bail, for AMD 5 million.
Also former defense minister Mikael Harutyunyan is wanted by the law-enforcement authorities as a defendant in the case.
He is accused of illegally using the Armenian armed forces against opposition supporters who demonstrated in Yerevan in the wake of the disputed presidential election held in February 2008. –0—