The office of Armenia`s second president reminded Pashinyan of Mussolini`s fate

ArmInfo. Reacting to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's attacks on Robert Kocharyan, the office of second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan reminded the head of the Armenian cabinet of the fate of the Italian politician, leader of the National Fascist Party, Duce Benito Mussolini.

During a briefing on September 11, Pashinyan once again lashed out at Robert Kocharyan. He promised to return even the last "shoe" he had "illegally acquired." Pashinyan then questioned how it was possible that Kocharyan "was working on the horizontal bar for a month during the parliamentary election campaign, and then, upon seeing the charges, found himself at death's door."

The head of the office of Armenia's second president, in this regard, decided to remind the Armenian prime minister of Kocharyan's previous heart surgery. "It is inappropriate for a man to intentionally and illegally jail someone who has just undergone surgery, and then lie about his health and try to assert himself. Everyone already knows about the medical intervention the president underwent; thousands of people undergo similar procedures. The president himself has prohibited using this intervention as grounds for a petition to reduce his arrest. "And the postponement of the court hearing on the arrest issue, so desired by Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, was carried out by one day solely on doctors' orders," Mikoyan noted. He then stated that Armenia's second president is healthy and will certainly yet witness the "political agony of some individuals." "There are leaders who govern their country peacefully and with dignity, live to retirement age, and, thanks to a healthy lifestyle, are able to perform complex exercises on the horizontal bar, while there are leaders who drag out their existence in an unworthy manner, not reaching retirement age because the people 'hang them on the horizontal bar.'" "An image of Mussolini is available online, and you can see it: he's hanging from something resembling a horizontal bar (Mussolini's body was hanged in Piazzale Loreto in Milan - ed.)," Mikoyan concluded.

As a reminder, on August 25, National Security Council officers conducted searches of the apartment of Levon Kocharyan, a member of the opposition Armenia faction and the son of second president Robert Kocharyan, and of companies affiliated with the Kocharyan family. Robert Kocharyan and Sedrak Kocharyan were then detained and taken to the Anti-Corruption Committee for questioning. However, Robert Kocharyan's condition, who had undergone heart surgery in early August, deteriorated sharply, and he was hospitalized. Robert Kocharyan was charged that same day with large-scale money laundering, abuse of office, and accepting a large bribe. Nine other individuals were also charged in the case. On August 27, the Anti-Corruption Court ordered Kocharyan's pretrial detention for two months.

It should be added that the political forces of Armenia's second president associate his arrest with an attempt to neutralize a key member of the opposition amid the Armenian government's readiness to make further concessions to Azerbaijan.