Kocharyan’s lawyers say received arrest ruling, will appeal it to higher courts
The defense lawyers of Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan say that they have received the Yerevan appellate court ruling on Kocharyan’s rearrest.
In a statement released on Friday, the defense team unveiled its plans to appeal the decision to the Court of Cassation.
“At the moment, the attorneys are also working on appealing it to the Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights, simultaneously.” the statement says.
As reported earlier, the Yerevan Court of Appeals, under presiding judge Ruben Mkhitaryan, upheld last Friday the ruling of a first instance court on remanding Kocharyan into custody, rejecting all the motions filed by his defense team.
The ex-president was arrested in July on charges of ‘overthrowing the constitutional order’ during the March 1-2, 2008 post-election events.
He was released by the Court of Appeals on 13 August on the basis of immunity from prosecution.
Both the attorney general and Kocharyan’s defense team appealed that ruling, with the latter claiming that there were also other legal grounds for his release.
On 15 November, the Court of Cassation rejected Kocharyan’s appeal and only partly satisfied the prosecutors’ demands to send the case back to the Court of Appeals for re-examination.
Kocharyan denies the charges as ‘politically motivated’.
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