“Taking into consideration the court’s decision that immunity is used when filing charges and that it cannot carry out criminal persecution or any other activity that is aimed at criminal persecution, using preventative measures is considered to be criminal persecution and it is therefore illegal,” said second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan’s lawyer Aram Orbelyan in an interview with reporters regarding the information provided by the Special Investigative Service on September 4th that Kocharyan had to sign off on not leaving the country as a preventative measure.
According to him, it’s not clear yet if Kocharyan has any limits when it comes to crossing Armenia’s borders or not. “Nevertheless, before the SIS’s announcement, we asked a similar question and didn’t receive an answer. It’s possible that there will be limitations. We think that that is not legal. We think that the individual should not face issues when leaving the country if there has been a decision made by the investigative criminal court stating that the preventative measures are no longer in effect.
Regarding the information that Robert Kocharyan’s passport is being held by law enforcement officers, the lawyer emphasized, “The investigative committee does not have the right to keep the individual’s passport if there has not been such a preventative measure taken. This was a decision made by the constitutional court in 2017.”
Luiza Sukiasyan
