An Armenian court has ordered two months of pre-trial detention for Sedrak Kocharyan, the eldest son of former president Robert Kocharyan, a day after both men were arrested in a corruption investigation.
The Anti-Corruption Court in Yerevan granted the investigators’ motion on August 26. Prosecutors had sought custody for six people held in the operation.
Kocharyan’s lawyer Aleksandr Kochubayev said the court had restricted his client’s right to receive visitors, with an exception made for his wife and children. He told reporters outside the courtroom that the defence would challenge the ruling.
The Anti-Corruption Committee is investigating allegations of money laundering on a particularly large scale, abuse of official powers and taking bribes on a particularly large scale.
Investigators allege that Robert Kocharyan used his 1998-2008 presidency to acquire state property at prices well below market value and without public tenders, then disguised the ownership through affiliated companies.
The committee said it was examining transfers made in Sedrak Kocharyan’s name between 2001 and 2019 and the purchase of dozens of properties in Armenia and abroad linked to the suspects and their relatives.
Robert Kocharyan, detained on August 25 along with four other people, was taken to hospital in Yerevan the same day after his blood pressure rose in custody. His office said he had recently undergone a medical procedure. He turns 72 on August 31.
A separate detention request against the former president was due to be put to the court once those medical checks were complete.
Charges in the same proceedings have been brought against nine other people. They include former president Serzh Sargsyan, former Yerevan mayor Gagik Beglaryan, businessman Samvel Mayrapetyan and Andranik Margaryan, a prime minister who died in office in 2007.
Sargsyan appeared at the Anti-Corruption Committee with his lawyer on August 25 and was charged. He told journalists he had yet to receive the case materials.
Robert Kocharyan leads the Armenia Alliance, the second-largest opposition bloc in parliament and the main pro-Moscow force in Armenian politics. The alliance has called the case an act of personal vengeance and said the state apparatus had been subordinated to the fears of one man.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, whose Civil Contract party won the June 7 election, told parliament on August 24 that Armenia could lodge a European Union membership application in the near future. In the same session he challenged Levon Kocharyan, the former president’s younger son and an opposition MP, over the source of the family’s wealth.
None of the allegations has been tested in court.
