Samvel Karapetyan has been taken into custody over alleged calls to overthrow the government in Yerevan
Moscow is closely monitoring the legal case against businessman Samvel Karapetyan, who was arrested in Armenia earlier this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. The billionaire holds both Russian and Armenian citizenship.
Karapetyan has been accused of calling for the overthrow of the Armenian government and is being held in pre-trial detention for two months. He has denied all the charges, while his supporters claim the case against him is politically motivated.
“Of course we’re watching. For us, he is a Russian citizen. We do not want to interfere in the internal affairs of Armenia, but we most carefully follow everything that is related to Russian citizens,” Peskov told reporters on Friday.
Karapetyan was taken into custody on Tuesday hours after he voiced his support for the Armenian Apostolic Church in its standoff with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. “I have always been on the side of the Armenian Church and the Armenian people. If the politicians fail, we will intervene in the campaign against the Church in our own way,” he said.
Shortly after the billionaire’s remarks, Pashinyan took to Facebook vowing to retaliate and shut down the businessman’s operations in the country “for good.” Just a few hours later, Karapetyan’s residence in Yerevan was raided by police.
The case against Karapetyan has received condemnation from different figures in the Armenian diaspora and the Orthodox community.
“From the information we have, the arrest is likely related to the escalation of the conflict between the church and the government of Armenia… Freedom of speech is sacred, and persecution of a person for personal views is unacceptable unless martial law is declared,” Vikan Tosunyan, a spokesman for Lebanon’s Armenian Democratic Liberal Party, told Sputnik Arabic.
The arrest of Karapetyan is a part of a broader attack on Eastern Christianity, renowned Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica has suggested, drawing parallels between the actions of Pashinyan and politicians in other countries.
“[Vladimir] Zelensky is doing this in Ukraine, they tried to do this in Montenegro, but the people there rose up, and Belgrade was able to defend the church, so we can only believe that we, the Orthodox, have protection and seek it in our brotherly Russia,” Kusturica told RIA Novosti.
In recent weeks, Pashinyan has repeatedly attacked the church, accusing it of various violations and corruption, as well as personally targeting Catholicos Garegin II, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, claiming he had breached his vow of celibacy and urging him to step down. The church has firmly rejected the allegations, suggesting the prime minister himself has been acting on behalf of foreign “Armenophobic” forces.
