Court Accepts Appeal of Life Imprisoned Arthur Kocharyan's Representatives

The court has accepted the appeal of Arthur Kocharyan's representatives, who has been sentenced to life in prison. This was reported by the Vanadzor office of the Human Rights Defender.

The statement particularly mentions: “On October 14, 2019, the authority conducting the proceedings in the case of Arthur Kocharyan, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment since 2005, made a decision to terminate the criminal proceedings against members of the military police and to not carry out criminal prosecution.” The issue concerning A. Kocharyan has been addressed by the HRD in previous publications.

In response to the decision, A. Kocharyan's defenders, lawyers Arayik Zalyan and Ani Chatinyan from the HRD office, submitted an appeal to the Attorney General of the Republic of Armenia. This appeal was rejected by a decision of the head of the pre-trial proceedings supervision at the Special Investigative Service.

Finding that the decision made by the authority conducting the proceedings was in violation of criminal procedural norms and led to a violation of A. Kocharyan's rights and freedoms, the lawyers filed a petition-appeal to the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction.

Citing several articles of the Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia, A. Zalyan and A. Chatinyan provided substantial justifications in their appeal. These could be decisive for the outcome of the case if taken into account by the authority conducting the proceedings.

The appeal specifically presents arguments supporting the violations of A. Kocharyan's rights to protection from torture, freedom, and personal inviolability. Furthermore, MORE HERE.