Armenia Judge Orders Pre-Trial Release of Ex-President From Jail

(Bloomberg) -- An Armenian judge ordered the release from jail of the country’s former President Robert Kocharyan, pending his trial on charges of overthrowing constitutional order.

Judge Davit Grigoryan made the order at a pre-trial hearing in the capital Yerevan after receiving assurances from Bako Sahakyan and Arkady Ghukasyan, respectively the current and former presidents of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Kocharyan’s lawyer Aram Orbelyan said on Saturday. Bail was also paid for Kocharyan’s release.

Kocharyan is facing prosecution over his decision to order police and troops to disperse opposition protests at the end of his presidency in 2008, resulting in violence that killed 10 people. He faces as long as 15 years in prison if found guilty. A court ordered Kocharyan’s re-arrest in December, after his initial detention in July made him the first former head of an ex-Soviet republic to be jailed.

The Kremlin is watching events closely in the Caucasus nation of 3 million people that hosts a vital Russian military base and is engaged in a 30-year conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has on a number of occasions raised Moscow’s concerns about the arrest of Kocharyan, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sara Khojoyan in Yerevan at skhojoyan@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Davis at abdavis@bloomberg.net, Dylan Griffiths, James Amott

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