Armenia detains Moscow-friendly ex-president in anti-corruption probe
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Armenian law enforcement services detained the country's former president and leader of a pro-Russian opposition alliance, Robert Kocharyan, as part of an anti-corruption investigation, the media reported on Aug. 25, citing authorities.
Kocharyan, Armenia's president from 1998 until 2008, leads the Armenia Alliance, one of the main Moscow-friendly political forces opposing Armenia's pro-EU Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Since early morning on Aug. 25, law enforcement officers have been conducting searches at the homes of Kocharyan, his son and lawmaker Levon Kocharyan, and several dozen addresses, Armenia's Anti-Corruption Committee told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Kocharyan's other son, Sedrak, and four other people have also been detained, according to Armenian news outlet News.am.
While in office, the ex-president acquired a number of valuable properties that had been removed from state ownership on fictitious grounds and sold significantly below market value, the Anti-Corruption Committee said in a press release.
Robert Kocharyan's lawyer confirmed that the president has been formally charged, while denouncing the case as "politically motivated."
The news comes just a day after a heated debate in the Armenian parliament between Pashinyan and Levon Kocharyan, during which the prime minister accused the ex-president's family of illegally acquiring vast wealth.
Robert Kocharyan has been a longtime advocate of closer relations with President Vladimir Putin's Russia and a critic of Armenia's 2018 Velvet Revolution, a series of mass anti-government protests that led to Pashinyan's election victory.
Pashinyan's government has increasingly pulled Yerevan away from Russia, its traditional ally, and sought closer ties with the West and the EU, a course cemented in the prime minister's victory in the June parliamentary elections.
