Armenian legal expert criticizes 'unusually fast' handling of Samvel Karapetyan's case

A prominent Armenian constitutional law specialist has questioned the extraordinary speed of recent procedural steps in the case of businessman and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan, who is in pretrial detention on charges of allegedly calling for the seizure of power in Armenia rejected by many as politically motivated.

Gohar Meloyan, head of the International Center on Development of Parliamentarism NGO, said the sequence of actions taken on November 13, ranging from the Court of Cassation’s ruling to its transfer through multiple agencies and the filing of a new detention request, unfolded “faster than Formula 1 drivers”. She noted that the decision, exceeding 100 pages, was received, reviewed, analyzed, incorporated into a motion and submitted to the Anti-Corruption Court within hours, despite typical bureaucratic delays and heavy traffic in Yerevan.

Meloyan argued that anyone familiar with Armenia’s judicial procedures would recognize the pace as unprecedented, calling it “the fastest process in the world” for a case of this kind.