National philanthropist and businessman Samvel Karapetyan’s preventive measure changed to house arrest

The preventive measure applied to national philanthropist and businessman Samvel Karapetyan has been changed to house arrest. His lawyer, Armen Feroyan, informed Aysor.am of the decision, noting that the court has also set bail in the amount of 4 billion drams.

Samvel Karapetyan has been in detention since June, when he was arrested just hours after making a public statement in defense of the Armenian Apostolic Church. At the time, police surrounded and searched his mansion.

During his detention, the original charge of calling for a “seizure of power” was later supplemented with additional charges, including money laundering on a particularly large scale, tax evasion, and fraud. Earlier today, lawyer Aram Vardevanyan also announced that the court, during its session, decided to impose house arrest and bail as preventive measures against Samvel Karapetyan.

“Samvel Karapetyan has been illegally detained since June 18, 2025. By a decision dated November 18, 2025, his detention was extended for an additional two months without any legal grounds,” Vardevanyan stated. “Recently, our legal team submitted another petition to the court under the mechanism provided by Article 289 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Based on this petition, a court hearing was held today, which, under that procedure, differed from previous hearings and was not expected to be lengthy. After examining our petition, the court decided to partially satisfy it by once again applying an intensive preventive measure – house arrest and bail – against Samvel Karapetyan.”