The court found Karapetyan's detention unlawful

The Yerevan Court of Appeal has ruled Samvel Karapetyan's detention illegal.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" reported, on July 2, searches were conducted at the head office of the company belonging to the arrested businessman Samvel Karapetyan. The reason for the searches was a criminal case on tax evasion and money laundering, the Investigative Committee of Armenia stated. The Court of Appeal upheld Karapetyan's arrest as legal.

The Criminal Court of Appeal of Armenia has found the detention of Tashir Group President Samvel Karapetyan unlawful, one of his lawyers, Lianna Gasparyan, said.

"The court found that Samvel Karapetyan's detention on June 18, 2025, was unlawful, as a result of which he illegally spent more than 9 hours in captivity," the "Novosti Armenia" agency quotes her as saying.

The Criminal Court of Appeal found the detention, but not the arrest, of Samvel Karapetyan unlawful, Karapetyan's lawyer Aram emphasized. Vardevanyan.

"The decision made by the investigator is no longer lawful, but this concerns the detention. The detention was found to be unlawful, but the arrest is still in effect. An arrest that has been applied for more than 50 days and initially had no legal basis. In any democratic society, such an arrest would naturally have been canceled, but I suspect that a motion will be filed to extend the arrest applied to Samvel Karapetyan," News.Am quoted him as saying.

He added that the preventive measure in the form of arrest chosen for Samvel Karapetyan should be canceled.

"If the investigator submits such a motion, then the court should decide this issue. Let's hope that in this situation the law will prevail and lawlessness will be defeated," said Aram Vardevanyan.

The Armenian Prosecutor's Office will appeal the decision of the appellate court to the Cassation Court, which recognized the detention of the head of the Tashir companies Samvel Karapetyan as illegal, Armenia Today reported.

According to the prosecutor's office, the decision of the Court of Appeal on the detention has no bearing on the legality and validity of the court's decision to choose arrest as a preventive measure against Karapetyan. The prosecutor's office claims that after the detention was recognized as illegal, the businessman was released by decision of the investigation, and later detained on other grounds that were recognized as legitimate.

"In a democratic society, the prosecutor's office, naturally, would not have appealed the decision of the Court of Appeal to recognize Samvel Karapetyan's arrest as illegal, but should have, on its own initiative, canceled the clearly illegal detention," Vardevanyan commented on the department's statement on his Facebook page*.