By Benoit Lannoo
Yerevan (Armenia) – 14 August 2025 (IDN) – Today at 5:30 PM local time, an Armenian anti-corruption Court in Yerevan will decide on a petition of the General Prosecutor of the country to prolong the detention of Mr. Samvel Karapetyan.
Last Monday, the Armenian Court of Criminal Appeals already decided that Mr. Karapetyan’s arrest on June 17th was “unlawful”, but the Armenian authorities vowed to appeal immediately that decision.
If the Court today decides to prolong Mr. Karapetyan’s detention, that will show Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s determination to maintain his stranglehold on anyone who is somehow opposing his policies. Nobody expects a positive issue for Mr. Karapetyan since the judicial system in Armenia is totally under PM Pashinyan’s control.
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“In our way”
A prolongation of his detention might however convince Mr. Karapetyan and his family to indeed participate “in their way” by setting up a new political movement or alliance capable to beat Pashinyan at the elections to come in June 2026.
Those few words – “in our way” – are at the midst of this case.
In a 37 seconds response to a journalist’s question about the attacks PM Pashinyan had launched on Facebook since end of the month of May and the beginning of the month of July on Garegin II, the Catholicos of All Armenians, Mr. Karapetyan had used exactly those same words.
“A small group, having forgotten Armenian history and the millennia-old legacy of the Armenian Church, has attacked both the Church and the Armenian people. I have always stood with the Armenian Church and the Armenian people. If political leaders fail, we will participate in our way.”
The Russia-Armenian entrepreneur Samvel Karapetyan stood at the origins of the Tashir Group, a conglomerate that owns two large shopping complexes in Yerevan, as well as a major Armenian electricity company, Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), amongst other enterprises. Furthermore, Mr. Karapetyan is known for his philanthropic endeavours both in the Republic of Armenia and in Artsakh, the region in the mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh that have been ethnically cleansed from its Armenian population by the Azerbaijani in September 2023.
“Mr. Karapetyan is also supporting the national Armenian Church,” his lawyer, Mr. Aram Vardevanyan, is adding. “What Mr. Karapetyan was doing on June 17th, was simply participating to an interview, where he stated his support for the Armenian Church.”
What is this all about?
Artsakh
In the run-up to his re-election in 2021, Mr. Pashinyan had promised explicitly to defend the territorial integrity of his country, the Artsakh enclave on the Azerbaijani territory included. But he failed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin abandoned the Armenians when Azerbaijan in December 2022 blocked the Lachin Corridor to Artsakh, putting aside what had been agreed on at the cease-fire at the end of the 44 Days War in November 2022. Not to mention the European Union: Mr. Charles Michel’s name is spit out in Yerevan, since he was the President of the European Council who has held disastrous diplomatic initiatives at the time, in the facts only helping the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in his aggression towards Artsakh and the Artsakhis.
Since then, PM Pashinyan also does not defend the Artsakhis anymore… and he has put behind bars anybody who does instead not want to abandon them.
The Armenian Apostolic Church indeed is not abandoning the Artsakhis. “You cannot separate Artsakh from the rest of the Armenian question, the Armenian Genocide of a century ago, the border issues, etcetera,” archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan of Tavush already told us when we met in November 2023. Meanwhile, archbishop Galstanyan and his colleague Mikael Adżapahjan of Shirak are also in jail.
But let us return to Mr. Karapetyan. Once the Prime Minister of Armenia had decided to directly attack the Church and its Catholicos, nobody could expect its supporters to remain silent.
Attacks on the Church
The attacks of Mr. Pashinyan were unprecedented. The Prime Minister and his allies had widely spread an old rumour that the Church leader does not respect his celibacy vows and has a child.
“As a member of the Church, and not as Prime Minister,” Mr. Pashinyan on July 20th even asked the Armenian people to organize a rally at Etchmiadzin, the Mother See of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and to remove Catholicos Karekin II.
“Since the establishment of the Christian religion as the state religion in Armenia in 301 AD, a Catholicos has never been tackled as we have witnessed it in the previous weeks,” Mr. Karapetyan’s lawyer is noticing. “Can you imagine the political authorities of an European country calling for the resignation of the Pope?” As we have already mentioned it: this is unprecedented!
“And what did Mr. Karapetyan do on July 17th? He just said that if the political actors cannot protect and support the Armenian national Church, ‘we will participate in our way‘. But in about two hours, the Prime Minister personally, started to make statements on his official Facebook page with direct promises of retribution and punishment of Mr. Karapetyan. And few hours later, Samvel Karapetyan has been arrested, and he is still detained since.” That is: for already two months, under the strictest regime known in the country.
Justice by Facebook
Meanwhile, the Armenian government also tries to nationalize the country’s electricity grid from the company owned by the jailed billionaire, the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA).
But in a ruling, issued on July 22th by the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC), the arbiter instructs the Armenian government to halt implementation of recently passed laws targeting ENA and to cease any steps that could result in the seizure or transfer of the company’s assets or licenses. Nikol Pashinyan and his government however are explicitly ignoring the Arbitration Institute.
Between brackets: the fact that one of the parties is ignoring the ruling of an arbitration court, is simply reducing the arbitration process to be irrelevant, what also concerns other companies all over the world relying to arbitration instead of engaging for long term judicial proceedings.
“Al those incidents took place after June 17th, when the public promise of retribution was made by the Prime Minister and implemented completely,” Mr. Vardevanyan says. “So I can state firmly that the criminal case against Mr. Karapetyan, his detention and the government’s attempts to seize his biggest company, all are part of a political prosecution based on the public promises made by the Prime Minister.”
This is justice by Facebook posts.
Narek Karapetyan
How is Samvel Karapetyan going to react now?
We have met Mr. Narek Karapetyan, his cousin and the first Deputy President of the Tashir Group. And Mr. Narek Karapetyan is not hiding that plans to enter the political arena, are made in the family.
By the way: Mr. Samvel Karapetyan for himself cannot run for office, since he is not only Armenian, but also holds the Russian and the Cypriote nationality.
During our meeting, Mr. Narek Karapetyan is remembering that there was a lot of hope when Nikol Pashinyan came into power with the so-called ‘Velvet Revolution’ in 2018. “There was the hope that this was the next step towards the establishment of a strong democratic tradition.” Armenia was already more democratic than all the neighbouring countries. Azerbaijan, Iran, and Türkiye do not have the democratic perspectives that Armenia have.
“In our country, the heads of State are changing,” Mr. Narek Karapetyan says. “In the thirty years of our independence, we have had several presidents and prime ministers.”
But things have changed since Armenia’s defeat in November 2020 in the 44-days war for Nagorno-Kharabakh. “Since then, the government have started to become more autocratic.”
And the peak in this movement was few months ago, when the Prime Minister started his public attacks on the Armenian Apostolic Church, the basis of the national identity of the Armenians and the unifying element for the Armenians in Armenia and the Armenian diaspora.
“The government wants to take control over the Church, but the Church has absolute autonomy in Armenia,” the Deputy President of the Tashir Group stresses. “Many Armenian business people could not say anything because feeling some danger from the side of the government. They are fearing tax problems or legal problems or whatever. But my uncle, who is the biggest investor in Armenia in the last five years, did not stay quiet and made his famous 37 seconds statement, what caused him to be arrested.”
Technicians
Although very prudent in his comments, Mr. Narek Karapetyan is not restricting them to the conflict between the Church and the Prime Minister.
“Everything started when Mr. Pashinyan began to negotiate with Türkiye and with Azerbaijan and somehow to deny the Armenian Genocide and it’s going on with the forced displacement of the people of Artsakh. The Prime Minister also is trying to restrict the role of the diaspora in the public affairs of Armenia, what is unacceptable since the diaspora is constituted of the victims of the Armenian Genocide in the east of Türkiye.”
The younger Karapetyan is also blaming most of the members of the Pashinyan government not to be particularly competent. “They have no long-term plans nor strategy to activate our economy.”
That is why Mr. Narek Karapetyan is announcing that his uncle, “as a consolidating figure” will use “his reputation in business and in society” to “change government policies”.
“We are going ahead and have a plan to bring a new political culture to this country.”
When asked about the concrete implementation of that plan and about the people to eventually participate in the elections process, Mr. Narek Karapetyan is referring to the “12,000 people working in our companies and having a large scale of skills”.
Nonetheless, although the entrepreneur might be right that technicians are necessary to run public affairs, you do not win elections with technicians only.
The ten months to go till the elections of June 2026 are a truly short term for a new Renaissance in Armenian politics. At the latest election polls, PM Pashinyan indeed could not seduce 15 percent of the votes. But the apathy of the Armenians citizens is huge, they do not trust any of their leaders anymore.
The Armenian political scene needs a “new kid in town”, a man or a woman as charismatic as for example Mr. Samvel Karapetyan’s lawyer. And it also will need a grassroots team to go and meet the Armenians and to convince them of a new national project and to vote for it. That might be a job not for technicians alone.
Benoit Lannoo is an expert in Communication, Ecumenical, Interfaith & Interreligious Dialogue & Policy Strategies bases in Antwerp (Belgium). He is travelling regularly in Armenia.
