Robert Kocharyan remanded in custody on graft charges

An Armenian court has remanded former president Robert Kocharyan in custody for two months on corruption charges, authorities said Thursday, two days after he and his eldest son were arrested.

Armenia's Anti-Corruption Committee said the Anti-Corruption Court fully granted an investigator's request to detain Kocharyan as a preventive measure.

Kocharyan, 71, was Armenia's president from 1998 to 2008. He now leads Armenia Alliance, the country's second-largest opposition party in parliament, and is a major critic of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The latest charges stem from allegations that Kocharyan bought and sold public land for personal gain while in office. Armenia's Anti-Corruption Committee previously accused Kocharyan and his eldest son Sedrak of involvement in criminal schemes and alleged that Kocharyan used his presidency to buy state property at prices far below market value.

Kocharyan's representatives have called the case an attack on him and his family. Armenia Alliance denounced the arrest as “tyranny”.

Levon Kocharyan, the former president's younger son and an opposition lawmaker, said Robert Kocharyan fell ill after his arrest earlier in the week and could not attend the court hearing.

The arrests came a day after Levon Kocharyan clashed with Pashinyan in parliament over “Artsakh”, an Armenian-populated breakaway state in Azerbaijan that collapsed after an Azerbaijani offensive in 2023.

Since Pashinyan came to power in 2018, Robert Kocharyan has been arrested three times on charges of undermining constitutional order.