The criminal indictment of former president Sargsyan is an obvious political decision of Pashinyan's government, expert says
''The criminal indictment of former president is an obvious political decision of Pashinyan's government'' constitutional pundit Gohar Meloyan commented on the criminal charges brought against Serzh Sargsyan.
Special Investigative Service of Armenia indicted former president and prime-minister of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, on charges of “theft of state money'' and barred him from leaving the country.
In her interview the head of "International center on development of parliamentarism'' NGO, constitutional pundit Gohar Meloyan remarked that, ''The sole timing of indicting Sargsyan clearly shows that we deal with a political decision to prosecute the former president. As such, Sargsyan had been nearly silent since he left office in April, 2018. However, on November 20 he gave his most extensive comments to date on Armenia’s current political situation at the congress of the European People’s Party in Zagreb strongly critisizing Pashinyan and his government.
Within two weeks after his speech in Zagreb, he is indicted and barred from leaving Armenia based solely on the testimony of one witness. Basically, the charges come just two weeks after Serzh Sargsyan broke his silence since leaving office. One may reasonably argue that if former president has continued to keep silence, there would be no indictment. Moreover, he has been barred from leave Armenia in order to prevent him from possible future speeches in other international platforms.
Furthermore, it is worth to mention that there have been credible statements in the media about the illegal pressure on that witness which Special investigative service has not even tried to deny.''