Armenia’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) voted on Wednesday to grant the Prosecutor General’s Office consent to initiate criminal proceedings against former President and Armenia Alliance leader Robert Kocharyan, lifting the immunity he holds as a parliamentary candidate. According to his lawyer, Aram Orbelyan, Kocharyan is expected to be charged with abuse of official authority and money laundering, though the Prosecutor General’s Office has not publicly specified the charges.
The commission examined the prosecutors’ motions in a closed-door session that also covered two other Armenia Alliance candidates, Asatur Kocharyan and Ruslan Barseghyan, and two candidates from the Strong Armenia bloc. According to Kocharyan’s defense, he was the only one of the figures considered for whom prosecutors did not also request detention. As the head of the alliance’s electoral list, Kocharyan holds legal protections that require the CEC’s approval before any criminal proceedings or restrictions on his liberty.
Kocharyan’s case stems from a 2004 government-approved transaction during his presidency involving the “Master Class” tennis complex, next to the Orange Fitness club in Yerevan. Orbelyan said the property had been leased and the tenant had begun construction with its own funds, and that in 2008, facing financial difficulties, the company sought investors and made an offer to Kocharyan’s son, Sedrak, who then joined the project. The 2004 deal, he said, was never legally challenged, and neither Kocharyan nor his family was involved in it; prosecutors, he argued, are now attempting to link Sedrak’s later purchase to the original transaction.
Orbelyan rejected the case as “artificially fabricated,” saying the materials describe no crime, that the information in the accusation is “false, not merely unsubstantiated,” and that the matter has exceeded all statutes of limitations.
Kocharyan’s office tied the move directly to his being blocked at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport two days earlier, when authorities prevented him from leaving on a pre-planned private trip. In a statement, the office said that at the time of the airport stop the Investigative and Anti-Corruption Committees had acknowledged there were no criminal proceedings against him, meaning his departure was restricted unlawfully, and that the prosecutor’s office had now “stitched up” a case and petitioned the CEC after the fact.
The decision aligns with what Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan promised throughout the campaign. Branding the opposition the “three-headed party of war,” he repeatedly threatened new criminal cases, declaring that “Robert Kocharyan will go to prison, Gagik Tsarukyan will go to prison, Samvel Karapetyan will go to prison.” It comes within days of the tax-evasion indictment of Tsarukyan, a separate prosecution of Tsarukyan’s son-in-law, and a court ruling stripping Tsarukyan’s Olympic Committee of $90 million in Tsaghkadzor land, as Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance and other opposition forces challenge the June 7 election results before the Constitutional Court.
Strong Armenia Candidate Davit Ghazinyan Detained Over Alleged Election Bribery
At the same session, the CEC also lifted the immunity of Davit Ghazinyan, a Strong Armenia parliamentary candidate, who was then detained. Ghazinyan, the former CEO of Electric Networks of Armenia, the utility owned by Strong Armenia leader Samvel Karapetyan, is accused of involvement in a vote-buying scheme in Yerevan. He denies wrongdoing, and his lawyer, Aram Vardevanyan, called the case “absolutely absurd” and “entirely politically motivated.”
