Prosecution motions for Karapetyan`s arrest

ArmInfo. The defense of Samvel Karapetyan, the head of the Tashir Group of Companies and a Russian businessman of Armenian descent, will file an appeal against the court's decision to place him under house arrest. The prosecution, in turn, is demanding his detention.  Lawyer Aram Vardevanyan announced  this on his Facebook page.

He also noted that on January 5, 2026, the first working day of the  new year, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Investigative  Committee of Armenia had already taken two actions: they filed an  appeal against the decision to place Karapetyan under house arrest,  requesting that the court order the arrest be the only measure, and  they rejected the defense's motion to allow the businessman to visit  his father's grave on All Souls' Day. "In this regard, the defense  has a question: how can law enforcement agencies present the grounds  for the complaint when, according to the Constitutional Court and the  European Court, the degrees of severity of restrictions on the rights  of arrest and house arrest are identical. Moreover, in Samvel  Karapetyan's case, this restriction was applied with possible and  impossible additional restrictions," the lawyer asks.

He expressed his conviction that all of this proves the absence of  grounds for arrest and reaffirms the clearly illegal, derogatory, and  law-denying position that Samvel Karapetyan should be arrested.

"This specific absurdity of political persecution has been going on  for approximately seven months.  Additional information about these  events will be presented soon. The law must prevail. Freedom for all  political prisoners," the lawyer concluded.

As a reminder, on December 30, the court changed businessman  Karapetyan's pretrial detention to house arrest. The businessman was  detained by law enforcement on June 18, and a court later remanded  him in custody on charges of calling for the overthrow of the  constitutional order due to his support for the Armenian Apostolic  Church. He was later charged with money laundering. Notably,  Karapetyan's arrest was preceded by threatening posts from Prime  Minister Nikol Pashinyan, which lawyers consider an attempt to  directly interfere with the investigation and law enforcement.  Following Karapetyan's arrest, the authorities effectively took over  the management of the Eclectic Networks of Armenia company from the  Karapetyan family, appointing Romanos Petrosyan, a member of the  Civil Contract party, as its manager.