The ruling on the pretrial detention of prominent businessman and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan will be issued on September 8, according to a Facebook post by his lawyer Aram Vardevanyan.
According to Vardevanyan, the prosecution of Karapetyan is clearly political.
“On June 17, 2025, the head of the executive branch made the following Facebook post: ‘Now I will intervene in my own way…’ This statement was clearly directed at a specific individual, and just hours later, businessman and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan was arrested in what was an obviously illegal detention—and he remains in custody to this day.
Ask anyone in the professional legal community: could the phrase ‘We will support the Church in our own way’ justify initiating a criminal case—or more importantly, serve as grounds for detention? The answers are unequivocal:
- launching the case is unlawful,
- no article of the Criminal Code’s special section applies,
- the detention is manifestly illegal.
The only obstacle to these clear answers is the now-infamous June 17 post. That post proves the political persecution of Samvel Karapetyan. It exposes the vendetta at play and the use of detention as punishment by law enforcement, despite obvious local and international obligations that explicitly prohibit such actions.
For nearly 80 days, the legality of this clearly unlawful and baseless detention has been under appeal. Strangely, the court is handling the appeal in writing, and the ruling is due September 8,” the lawyer wrote.
On June 18, Samvel Karapetyan was arrested for two months and placed in the Armavir penitentiary, charged with “publicly calling for the usurpation of government powers.” Just hours earlier, he had expressed public support for the Armenian Apostolic Church.
In response, Prime Minister Pashinyan wrote: “Why have the depraved ‘clergymen’ and their depraved ‘philanthropists’ become so active? No worries, we’ll silence them again. This time, for good.” He later added that the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) should be rapidly nationalized.
