The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Armenia has given consent to initiate criminal proceedings against Robert Kocharyan, leader of the opposition “Armenia” Alliance and the country’s second president.

Axar.az reports, citing Armenian media, that Kocharyan’s lawyer Aram Orbelyan announced this following the CEC session.

Earlier, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia submitted a request to the CEC for permission to initiate criminal prosecution against Kocharyan, as well as parliamentary candidates Asatur Kocharyan and Ruslan Barseghyan.

Kocharyan’s office said the decision was a continuation of what it called illegal actions against the former president, referring to the earlier restriction on his departure from the country at Yerevan’s Zvartnots International Airport.

“In fact, two days ago the Investigative and Anti-Corruption Committees [of Armenia] were noting that there were no criminal proceedings, and, therefore, the [second] president’s exit [from Armenia] was limited by committing a direct crime; and today the prosecutor’s office under the government ‘stitched up’ some kind of [criminal] case [against Robert Kocharyan] and petitioned to the CEC,” Kocharyan’s office said.