YEREVAN. – Presiding Judge Anna Danibekyan of the Yerevan general jurisdiction court trial of the criminal case against Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan, former CSTO Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov, former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, and former Deputy PM Armen Gevorgyan on Tuesday refused to terminate the criminal prosecution under Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code, despite the Constitutional Court decision on this article.
The court adjourned, and the next hearing was set for April 12.
The reason for rescheduling today’s hearing was the prosecution’s absence from the courtroom.
As reported earlier, this was the first court session after the Constitutional Court declared Article 300.1 (overthrow of the constitutional order) of the Criminal Code in conflict with Articles 78 (principle of proportionality) and 79 (principle of certainty) of the Constitution, and therefore invalidated it on March 26. It is not clear what kind of “overthrow” is in question, given that the aforesaid article was adopted under one constitution, and they had tried to amend it under another constitution.
The defendants are charged under this article of the Criminal Code.
In fact, the court shall terminate these defendants’ criminal prosecution under the said article, as well as of others who are charged with similar charges in this criminal case.