Criminal Court of Appeal in Yerevan postpones hearings in the case of  Kocharyan and others for a month

ArmInfo.The Criminal Court of Appeal in Yerevan, chaired by Judge Narine Hovakimyan, has postponed hearings on complaints from lawyers and prosecutors about the termination of the case on the alleged overthrow of the  constitutional order for a month.

Seyran Ohanyan's lawyer Karen Mezhlumyan said that he will be on  vacation from September 18 to 28. In addition, judges must  participate in refresher courses and will be able attend court  sessions after October 11. In this regard, the next hearing was  scheduled for 5:00pm on 15 October.

To recall, earlier the Constitutional Court recognized Article 300.1  (overthrow of the constitutional order), according to which charges  were brought against Robert Kocharian, as well as former Deputy Prime  Minister Armen Gevorgyan, former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan and  former Secretary General of CSTO Yuri Khachaturov, as not  corresponding to the Constitution. On this part, the charges were  dropped, the criminal prosecution was dropped.

The court also ruled to leave the bail unchanged as a measure of  restraint against the former president of the republic, since he and  former Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgyan are accused of taking  bribes on an especially large scale. In June 2020, by a court  decision, Robert Kocharian was released on bail in the amount of 2  billion drams. The General Prosecutor's Office of Armenia stated that  in the Constitutional Court it will challenge several articles of the  Criminal Code (CC) of the republic, according to which the  prosecutor's office must drop charges against the ex-head of state in  connection with the decision of the Constitutional Court to recognize  Article 300.1 as unconstitutional.

On August 30, the lawyers petitioned for a reduction in the amount of  the bail. Lawyer Hovhannes Khudoyan noted that by the decision of the  court of general jurisdiction of Yerevan on the termination of  criminal prosecution on the basis of Article 300.1, most of the  reasons for the establishment of the specified preventive measure  were eliminated. Defender Hayk Alumyan, in turn, stated that after  the termination of the criminal prosecution under Article 300.1, a  new situation has developed - those suspicions on which the measure  of restraint and the amount of bail were previously chosen are  significantly reduced.