Armenia arrests ex-president Kocharian on corruption charges, detains son and four others

Armenian police arrested former President Robert Kocharian on Tuesday along with his eldest son and four others on charges of abuse of power, large-scale money laundering, and bribery, according to Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Committee. Kocharian, 71, who led the country from 1998 to 2008, currently heads the Armenia Alliance, the second-largest opposition bloc in Parliament, which is considered pro-Moscow.
Prosecutors allege Kocharian used his presidential position to transfer state-owned property to himself and associates on favorable terms and concealed the criminal origin of those assets. Authorities published a list of properties they claim were illegally transferred, including a Defense Ministry plot sold to an associate at a quarter of its market value. Five others were arrested alongside Kocharian, one of them his son Sedrak Kocharian, a businessman. In total, 14 people have been charged in the case.
Kocharian’s lawyer, Aleksander Kochubaev, said his client was taken to a hospital after the arrest, while the ex-president’s spokesman stated Kocharian had recently undergone medical treatment and that doctors had ordered additional tests. A message on Kocharian’s Telegram page described the developments as an “attack” on him and his family.
The arrests followed a day after Kocharian’s younger son, Levon, an opposition lawmaker, criticized Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in Parliament, blaming him for losing control of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan. Investigators also conducted a search at Levon Kocharian’s apartment. Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but long controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists, was retaken by Baku in 2023, prompting over 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee.
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