25 June 2019, 18:40
Robert Kocharyan's advocates boycott trial
Advocates of Robert Kocharyan, the second president of Armenia, accused the court of bias and decided to boycott the today's pronouncement of the court's decision concerning the appeal filed by the General Prosecutor's Office.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that earlier, advocates of Robert Kocharyan filed a motion to suspend the court hearing. On June 20, Judge Armen Danielyan described the advocates' actions as an attempt to delay the trial and announced the end of the court hearing on the appeal filed by public prosecutor.
On May 18, 2019, the court released Kocharyan under the guarantee of the incumbent and a former presidents of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). This caused discontent of the Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan. On May 23, the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) of Armenia appealed against the release of the former president.
The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has learned about the boycott of the court hearing from Elina Saakova, the press secretary of the advocate group.
"Given that Judge Armen Danielyan has not allowed the defence to submit its objections and thereby ignored the principle of adversarial proceedings, neither Robert Kocharyan nor his defence will take part in the pronouncement of the decision of the Court of Appeal," noted Elina Saakova.
She has also added that the defence also called on supporters of Robert Kocharyan not to hold a rally in front of the court building.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 25, 2019 at 01:23 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Author: Tigran Petrosyan Source: CK correspondent
