Yesterday in Tbilisi intersection in the previous building of criminal court continued the trial against "Haykakan Zhamanak" newspaper to discuss and make a decision regarding the petition of the Kocharyans presented to the judge of the first instance court of Kentron and Nork-Marash districts.
Let us remind that Levon Kocharyan, younger son of Robert Kocharyan, had appealed to the court to restore his honor and dignity, which were crushed by the lies printed in the paper. Levon Kocharyan demanded that the paper deny the information and compensate for the damage that costs 16 million 120 thousand drams. The above mentioned publication was printed in the February 6 edition according to which Levon Kocharyan was drunk, misbehaved and got arrested in Dubai. In his petition, advocate Atanesyan stated that the judge is biased towards him. According to the advocate, he and his proxy have observed the verdict reached by Melkumyan based on the results of the examination of the case against his other defendant-former press speaker of the RA Ministry of Foreign affairs, member of the Armenian National Congress international relations committee Vladimir Karapetyan – as a verdict that was reached unprofessionally". Atanesyan asked for information from the National Security Service of Armenia to find out how many times Levon Kocharyan left Armenia in 2007. The NSS didn’t provide this information by reasoning that it’s confidential information. Atanesyan also applied to the foreign affairs minister of the UAE to find out whether Levon Kocharyan was arrested there. The UAE government responded that this information can be provided through diplomatic circles. So Atanesyan applied to the foreign affairs ministry of Armenia to attain this information. In the meantime, the advocates of Robert Kocharyan’s family Arpine Melikbekyan and Arayik Grigoryan submitted to the court the diplomatic passport of Levon Kocharyan, which doesn’t have any visa of the United Arab Emirates since the date of April 30 2008. Atanesyan didn’t exclude that Levon Kocharyan may have had another passport. The advocate has also mediated the court to postpone the trial for two more months. The judge has refused that mediation by relying on a written statement sent from the foreign affairs ministry of the UAE. According to this statement Levon Kocharyan didn’t make any crime and wasn’t arrested. However, according to this written response, which was validated and translated by the consul of Armenia to Dubai Marat Melikyan, it wasn’t denied that Kocharyan junior was in Dubai at that time. The judge postponed the court trial till May 26, 12:15 p.m.