Armenia: court starts hearing case of life convict Kocharyan (+video)

The court of general jurisdiction of administrative districts Kentron and Nork-Marash began hearings the case of release of Sogomon Kocharyan, a life convict, from prison for health reasons.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that doctors diagnosed in Kocharyan a heart failure of 4th functional class at the background of myocardial ischemia. On August 24, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) of Armenia informed that it had requested documents from doctors about the convict's health condition in order to consider a possibility of his conditional early relief (CER). Doctors assess Kocharyan's health condition as stably grave.

In 1995, Sogomon Kocharyan, a veteran of the Karabakh War, a Category 2 invalid, was accused of killing a citizen of Iran, an Azerbaijani by nationality, and sentenced to death. However, in 1991 Armenia declared a moratorium on death penalty; and in 2003, after adoption of the new Criminal Code, the death penalty was abolished. At the time of his arrest, Kocharyan's wife was pregnant; in 2012, she died. In March 2014, the 19-year-old Kocharyan's daughter committed suicide.

The "Caucasian Knot" wrote earlier that Kocharyan may become the first Armenian life convict who was provided with CER. Until now, the country had no precedents of applying CER to life convicts, or revision of their cases, which, according to interviewed experts, indicates the need to reform the rehabilitation system of prisoners.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.