Armenia’s Criminal Court of Appeals has ruled that businessman Samvel Karapetyan’s rights were violated, stating that the search of his apartment was conducted unlawfully. The announcement was made by his lawyer, Liana Gasparyan, via her Facebook page.
According to Gasparyan, there was a lack of sufficient factual grounds for the search warrant from the beginning.
She stated: “By court decision, the search of Samvel Karapetyan’s apartment was deemed unlawful. The Special Review appeal against the June 18, 2025, ruling by Judge Artak Karapetyan of the court of first instance—who had also issued the arrest warrant for Karapetyan—was upheld. As a result, the Criminal Court of Appeals confirmed the violation of Karapetyan’s rights.
This clearly proves that the search warrant was granted without adequate factual justification, rendering the search itself manifestly illegal,” the post reads.
On June 18, Samvel Karapetyan was arrested for two months and transferred to the Armavir penitentiary, charged with “publicly calling for the usurpation of governmental powers.” Just hours earlier, he had expressed strong public support for the Armenian Apostolic Church, stating: “I stand with our church and our people… I don’t care about them or their networks. Everything will be fine, the people will speak, and they will realize they were wrong.”
In response, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan posted: “Why have the wicked ‘clergymen’ and their wicked ‘benefactors’ become so active? No worries, we’ll silence them again. For good.” He later added that the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) should be swiftly nationalized.
