Robert Kocharyan: The hastily launched case had one goal – to ban me from leaving the country

ArmInfo. Armenia's second president, leader of the Armenia bloc, Robert Kocharyan, believes that the hastily launched case against him, which he called simply absurd, was necessary to ban him from leaving the country. He stated this in an interview with the media.

As the second president of Armenia recalled, he was supposed to leave the country between June 14 and 17. Moreover, as Kocharyan noted, this was announced in advance. Reacting in this regard to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's statement that NSS officers themselves can decide what to publish and what not, he stated that this was an exceptional case. "Every citizen, seeing this, should consider how protected their privacy is in Armenia today," Kocharyan stated.

He also linked these events to other government actions, such as secret wiretaps during the election process. "We are now following the path once taken by Saddam Hussein (Iraqi statesman and politician) and Ben Ali (Tunisian statesman and military leader). This is precisely their style of work," the politician noted.

The second president also responded to claims that he was attempting to flee the country. Kocharyan noted that he leaves the country at least seven to eight times a year. "And as you can see, I'm still here. It's interesting that since 2018, there have been numerous court decisions regarding my pretrial detention, and not a single one has indicated a risk that I'll try to evade justice or flee. These people are simply trying to project their behavior onto others. That is, they think that if they can hide and run, then so can others. But that's not about me," stated Armenia's second president.

Kocharyan also commented on why he didn't unite with Samvel Karapetyan's "Strong Armenia" bloc and run as a united front in the elections. In this regard, he first recalled that various polls had been published before the elections, according to which their bloc hadn't passed the threshold to enter parliament. "However, as you can see, the opposite has happened. Moreover, such polls were distributed by both the current and previous authorities. Secondly, if we understand that we are definitely crossing the electoral threshold and entering parliament, our participation was crucial in terms of mobilizing our electorate. If we had dispersed these votes, that would be a different matter," Kocharyan concluded.

As a reminder, on June 16, it was reported that the Prosecutor General's Office had petitioned the Central Election Commission to grant consent to initiate criminal proceedings against Armenia's second president, Robert Kocharyan. Reacting to this, Bagrat Mikoyan, head of the second president's office, stated that the Prosecutor General's Office's appeal was a continuation of the lawlessness that occurred two days earlier at the airport. At that time, the authorities prohibited Kocharyan from leaving the country, despite the fact that the office of the second president had announced Kocharyan's intention to leave the country in advance, noting that the politician intended to be absent from the country for three days for personal reasons. Notably, pro-government media outlets circulated videos showing Kocharyan going through border control, accompanied by the caption "Kocharyan is attempting to leave the country." Such speculation occurred despite Kocharyan's office having notified him in advance of his intention to leave Armenia for three days for personal reasons.