According to Armenia’s Datalex judicial information system, Karapetian is seeking the apology over allegedly insulting remarks made by Pashinian during a public speech on May 29.
The court documents do not yet specify which remark prompted Karapetian’s lawsuit. May 29 was one of the days of the election campaign ahead of the June 7 parliamentary vote, during which Pashinian repeatedly spoke about his main political opponents, including Karapetian, former President Robert Kocharian and Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian.
At one of his campaign rallies, Pashinian called Karapetian a “spy acting against the Armenian state.”
Karapetian is demanding that Pashinian apologize in a live video on Facebook.
The lawsuit was received on September 9 and assigned to Judge Tigran Grigorian of the Yerevan Civil Court. No hearing date has yet been set.
Karapetian, whose newly established Strong Armenia alliance finished second in the elections won by Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, was arrested in June 2025 following his criticism of the prime minister’s controversial attempts to depose Catholicos Garegin II.
Karapetian was charged with publicly calling for the overthrow of the government, as well as money laundering, large-scale fraud and tax evasion. The opposition politician, who was moved to house arrest in December and participated in the election campaign from his Yerevan mansion, rejects the accusations as politically motivated.
Karapetian has previously filed a lawsuit against former parliament speaker and current Security Council Secretary Alen Simonian, demanding that he publicly retract statements made about him on Facebook and TikTok on May 19.
Karapetian is also seeking 6 million drams (about $16,500) in compensation from Simonian for defamation. He wants Simonian to retract a statement alleging that law-enforcement authorities should assess “how legal it is for a foreign intelligence service employee to establish a political party in the Republic of Armenia and enter politics,” and to acknowledge that the information was false and defamatory.
A court has also accepted another lawsuit by Karapetian against the ruling Civil Contract party and Armenia’s Public Television.
In that case, Karapetian is demanding the retraction of statements made in a Civil Contract election campaign video broadcast by Public Television describing him as an “oligarch” and accusing him of “forming a three-headed party of war,” “deceiving and intimidating the public,” “buying votes to come to power,” “provoking war,” “eliminating Armenia’s independence” and “being a foreign spy.”
Pashinian, meanwhile, has filed two civil lawsuits against Karapetian. In one, the prime minister is seeking the retraction of claims made by the Strong Armenia leader on May 7, and in the other, the retraction of claims made on May 25.
At a May 7 news conference, Karapetian alleged, among other things, that Pashinian had tried special mushrooms in China that cause hallucinations and, according to information he had received, had brought about one ton of them back to Armenia for use during press briefings or when speaking from the parliamentary rostrum.
In the other lawsuit, Pashinian is demanding that Karapetian retract a claim that the prime minister owns a house in Canada.
In both cases, Pashinian is seeking 6 million drams (about $16,500) from the billionaire businessman as compensation for nonmaterial damage allegedly caused by defamation.