Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan also had good deeds during his tenure, National Security Service Director Artur Vanetsyan told reporters after a Cabinet meeting on Thursday.
He dismissed personal problems with Kocharyan or his family. “The Kocharyan family has done nothing wrong to me personally. Robert Kocharyan was Armenia’s second president, of course, during his tenure he carried out a lot of positive activity too. He was the first president of Artsakh and as an officer who served in those years, I cannot have any personal or any other problems with that family,” Vanetsyan said, urging not to personalize the issue.
His comments came after the former president’s elder son Sedrak Kocharyan, recently charged with tax evasion and money laundering, filed a civil lawsuit against Vanetsyan over a statement he made at a news conference on the charges.
The security chief said suing anyone is the constitutional right of every citizen. “Sedrak Kocharyan is free to file a lawsuit and the court will decide whether we are guilty or not,” he said, adding the case has nothing to do with political persecution.
“I stated immediately after the news conference that I put my words together in a wrong way and therefore I gave clarifications That is, from the very beginning I dismissed something for which they appealed to the court,” he noted.
He stressed the presumption of innocence of the ex-president’s son was not violated.