The Court of Appeal, presided over by Judge Zhenya Meliksetyan, ruled to dismiss the appeals of businessman Samvel Karapetyan’s legal team and the prosecutor’s office. This was stated in a statement by Karapetyan’s legal team. “All of this goes beyond the law and clearly excludes criminal prosecution from Armenian courts. The trial court cited only the risk of obstruction of justice as grounds for extending businessman Samvel Karapetyan’s unlawful detention, and the Court of Appeal effectively agreed with this, directly ignoring three indisputable facts:
1) the lack of a minimal basis for the charges,
2) unlawful detention for approximately six months,
3) the possibility of alternative preventive measures,” the statement noted. The lawyers also noted that “despite the absurdity of the charges, there were no legal grounds for denying such a forced petition.” As a reminder, the businessman’s pretrial detention was last extended on November 18.
Karapetyan has been in pretrial detention since June 18, 2025. He was arrested and then detained following an interview with News.am on June 17, in which he addressed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s attacks on the Church and the clergy. “What opinion should I have if a small group, forgetting the history of Armenia, the millennia-long history of the Armenian Church, attacks the Armenian Church and the Armenian people?” “Since I have always been on the side of the Armenian people and the Armenian Church, I will be directly involved. If the politicians fail, then we, too, will participate in all of this in our own way,” the businessman noted in the interview. The media outlet used the word “intervene” instead of “participate” in publishing the interview, which was followed by a response from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan the same day. “They say we’ll interfere in our own way.
Now I’ll interfere in your way, swindler. Or rather, you,” Pashinyan wrote on his Facebook page. Shortly thereafter, Karapetyan was arrested and charged under Part 2 of Article 422 of the Criminal Code, namely, publicly calling for the seizure of power, violation of territorial integrity, renunciation of sovereignty, or violent overthrow of the constitutional order, made through publicly displayed works or using mass media or information and communications technology. A month later, the businessman was again charged with failure to pay taxes, fees, or other payments and money laundering.
Later, the charges against Karapetyan were amended and he was charged with money laundering on an especially large scale using his official position or influence obtained from it.