Samvel Karapetyan rejected all charges during court hearing, lawyer says

Armenian businessman and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan has denied all allegations against him during a hearing at the Anti-Corruption Court, his lawyer Liana Gasparyan told reporters on Tuesday.

Speaking outside the courthouse, Gasparyan said the defense team had not yet received the written decision extending Karapetyan’s pre-trial detention for another two months. She argued that the court’s move hinged on a money-laundering allegation that lacks substantiation.

“If the suspicion of money laundering had not been reinforced, something the Court of Cassation’s ruling effectively enabled, the detention could not have been extended,” Gasparyan said.

The lawyer also noted that tensions rose after media reports emerged ahead of the official decision. According to her, Haykakan Zhamanak, a newspaper owned by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s family, reported the extension of Karapetyan’s detention at 18:30, prompting the defense team to raise concerns at 23:00, which angered the presiding judge.

Karapetyan personally attended the hearing and firmly rejected all charges, stating he had no connection to the alleged offences and no intention of obstructing the investigation.

Despite a 53-member investigative team dealing with to the case, no investigative actions involving Karapetyan have been carried out in recent months.