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Kocharian had No Right Coming Close to the Voting Booth: Human Rights Defender

By initiating steps toward uncovering the circumstances surrounding the events of Mar. 1–2, 2008, the authorities are pursuing one goal: to do everything possible not to be deprived of grants from international agencies, said Helsinki Association for Human Rights President Mikael Danielyan in a press conference in Yerevan today.

According to him, if the authorities truly wanted to uncover the facts of those events, they would’ve done so the following day.

“Tigran Paskevichyan made a film on Mar. 1 and delivered it to the authorities. He said, take it, watch it. The fact-finding group too, in turn, did everything — what more do they want?” said Danielyan, adding that if they’re waiting for some people to get up and say that they killed someone, it won’t happen, since in that case they would also have to say that who gave them the order to shoot.

Commenting on the claim by the Armenian National Congress to sue former president Robert Kocharian, Danielyan said that Kocharian should be sued because he usurped the presidential seat.

“Since 1998, he was signing illegal documents; for 10 years our country was living by documents that weren’t legal. He didn’t have a right to be elected at all; he shouldn’t have come close to the voting box at all,” he said.