Law must and will prevail - lawyer

ArmInfo. The law must and will prevail. Aram Vardevanyan, lawyer for the leader of the Strong Armenia party, businessman, and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan, wrote this on his Facebook page.

According to him, the defense filed an appeal against the decision to  place Samvel Karapetyan under illegal house arrest on March 18.  "Today we received the Court of Appeal's decision. Imagine that, with  the preliminary investigation already completed, the court, having  every reason to lift the unlawful house arrest, effectively avoided  making a decision, postponing it for the upcoming hearing.  Incidentally, the Court of Appeal didn't even address the issue of  video messages. The court agreed with some of our arguments, but this  is classic political persecution that has been going on for nearly 10  months. This is a classic violation of Articles 5 and 18 of the  European Convention. It is a denial of human rights. Despite all  this, rest assured that the law must and will prevail. Freedom for  all political prisoners," the lawyer wrote.

It should be noted that the Armenian court had previously upheld the  January 17 ruling placing Karapetyan under two months of house  arrest. The businessman was detained on June 18, 2025, by law  enforcement officers, and later remanded in custody on charges of  calling for the overthrow of the constitutional order in the country  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 Electric  Networks of Armenia company from the Karapetyan family, appointing  Romanos Petrosyan, a member of the Civil Contract party, as its  manager. ENA was also stripped of its license.