State prosecutors said on Friday that they will appeal against an Armenian court’s decision to release Robert Kocharian, the country’s former president facing coup charges, from custody.
The Court of Appeals on August 13 overturned lower court’s July 27 decision to allow law-enforcement authorities to arrest Kocharian. It said that he cannot be prosecuted for the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.
The Special Investigative Service (SIS), which filed the accusations, condemned the decision as “illegal” and urged prosecutors to appeal to the Court of Cassation, Armenia’s highest body of criminal and administrative justice.
“The Office of the Prosecutor-General today received the [full text of the] Court of Appeals’ decision to free former President Robert Kocharian and is preparing an appeal,” a spokesperson for the law-enforcement agency told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. The official did not say when the appeal will be lodged.
Kocharian stands accused of illegally using the armed forces against opposition protesters who demanded a rerun of a disputed presidential election held in February 2008. Eight protesters and two police personnel were killed when security forces broke up those demonstrations on March 1-2, 2018.
The ex-president denied the accusations as a politically motivated “vendetta” the day before his arrest. His lawyers have likewise dismissed them as baseless. They have also said that the Armenian constitution guarantees their client’s immunity from prosecution.
Article 140 of the constitution says: “During the term of his or her powers and thereafter, the President of the Republic may not be prosecuted and subjected to liability for actions deriving from his or her status.”
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