Samvel Karapetyan has been charged with new charges of "money laundering resulting from the activities of several companies." Statement

Samvel Karapetyan's statement of June 17, 2025 in defense of the Armenian Apostolic Church was followed by: 1) direct public threats and promises of retaliation by the head of the executive branch, 2) the initiation of criminal proceedings within hours, 3) within 24 hours, the filing of clearly illegal charges against Samvel Karapetyan for "calling to seize power" (the same statement defending the Mother See) and his arrest.

Samvel Karapetyan's defense council issued a statement about this.

"During this period, despite the lack of effective examination of the complaint in the Criminal Court of Appeal, it has become clear to any impartial observer that the charges are clearly unfounded and the detention is unlawful, as well as the political persecution nature of the overall criminal proceedings. As a result, instead of terminating the criminal proceedings and lifting the detention, the famous businessman and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan was recently presented with a new, clearly unfounded charge of "money laundering as a result of the activities of several companies," without any data. It is obvious that in Armenia recently, "money laundering" has become the most common charge and is regularly used exclusively in the context of political retaliation.

At the same time, in the current situation, the circumstance that any specific action of Samvel Karapetyan, which could somehow be related to the act being charged, is not present at all is unprecedented. Moreover, it turns out that the accusation was filed in the absence of any direct or indirect participation, concealment or distortion of the alleged funds. It is noteworthy that the actions described in the accusation did not mention any decision of a managerial nature, any connection with property,” the statement said.