A court in Armenia has decreed preventive detention for former president Robert Kocharian (1998-2008), accused of alleged abuse of power, money laundering, and receiving bribes.
"Taking into account the public interest, it is reported that the Anti-Corruption Court, presided over by Judge S. Dadoyan, (...) has issued preventive detention against R.K.," the country's Anti-Corruption Commission informed the news agency Armenpress.
The decision comes after a request was filed with the Anti-Corruption Court to impose preventive detention on six people, including Sedrak Kocharian, son of the former president. The measure is part of the criminal procedure opened by the Anti-Corruption Committee regarding alleged cases of large-scale money laundering, abuse of authority, and collection of particularly serious bribes.
The former head of state had already been detained and subsequently released on other occasions. In June 2019, he was arrested after voluntarily surrendering at a police station, hours after a court ordered his detention, having just been released from preventive detention for alleged irregularities in the declaration of a state of emergency in March 2008.