Armenia`s Anti-Corruption Court  postpones hearing in  Samvel  Karapetyan case

ArmInfo. The Anti-Corruption Court of Armenia has postponed the hearing in the case of Russian-Armenian businessman and leader of the Strong Armenia party, Samvel Karapetyan, until March 17. The judge argued that the time allotted for today's hearing had expired.

After the hearing, in a conversation with journalists, one of  Karapetyan's lawyers, Aram Vardevanyan, called the court's decision  to postpone the hearing due to workload unacceptable and  incomprehensible, considering that the issue of preventive measures  against Samvel Karapetyan should have been considered as a priority.  "The hearing will continue on April 17, scheduled for 1:30 PM. We  needed at least an hour to change the preventive measure, and now  we've effectively lost two days," he said.

Commenting on the authorities' accusations that the lawyers prevented  everyone from hearing Samvel Karapetyan's public appearance in court  because the hearing wasn't broadcast, Vardevanyan said the  businessman had already presented them with very interesting  circumstances. "This was documented, including the very important  emphasis on citizenship, which they themselves were probably most  expecting. And by the way, we're at the very early stage of the  trial, at the preliminary hearing stage, where we're currently only  discussing the issue of the preventive measure," Vardevanyan  clarified.

The lawyer noted that the previous decision to extend Samvel  Karapetyan's house arrest for a month was based on one circumstance:  the need to continue active legal proceedings. According to him,  Prosecutor Dallakyan accepted this rationale, leading to the  completion of the preliminary investigation, the absence of active  proceedings, and the confirmation of the indictment. However,  according to Vardevanyan, the same Dallakyan came to the hearing and  proposed extending Karapetyan's house arrest for three months. "Where  is the common sense here? This means that Prosecutor Dallakyan is not  impartial. What we are witnessing here is not a legal process, but  rather political persecution," he concluded.