Lawyer: Armenian Court of Appeals has found Samvel Karapetyan's detention to be unlawful

YEREVAN, August 11. /ARKA/. One of Samvel Karapetyan's lawyers, Lianna Gasparyan, reported that the Armenian Criminal Court of Appeal has found the Tashir Group president's detention unlawful.

"The court found that Samvel Karapetyan's detention on June 18, 2025, was unlawful. As a result, he spent more than nine hours illegally in captivity," Gasparyan wrote on her Facebook page.

According to Gasparyan, the Court of Appeal thus confirmed another instance of lawlessness in this criminal case: the illegal and unjustified detention of Samvel Karapetyan.

"At the same time, it should be noted that the court of first instance, also chaired by Judge Artak Karapetyan, did not address this important circumstance of the detention when making its decision," the lawyer noted.

Karapetyan was arrested in June on accusations of calling for a power seizure after he publicly supported the Armenian Apostolic Church in its conflict with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s administration. Following the arrest, Pashinyan declared it was time to nationalize Karapetyan’s company, Electric Netwroks of Armenia, and the Armenian parliament passed laws allowing the state to seize it.

In response, the Karapetyan family filed a lawsuit at the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC), citing a 1995 bilateral investment treaty between Armenia and Cyprus.

The SCC ruled that Armenia must halt any efforts to enforce the new legislation or confiscate the company, warning that such actions would hinder the family’s ability to recover damages if they lose control.-0-